A frequency translation approach for multichannel 13C spectroscopy

Multi-channel receivers are commonplace in MRI, but very few of these receivers are capable of operating over a broad enough bandwidth to accommodate nuclei other than ¹H. While this is fine for imaging, the recent surge in interest in in vivo NMR has created a need for receive arrays to improve the often-poor sensitivity of other nuclei. However, the development of these arrays has been slowed by the scarcity of multi-channel, multinuclear receivers. Frequency translation is a method to solve this by using radiofrequency mixers to convert signals received from multinuclear arrays to the proton frequency, adapting narrow-band receivers to multinuclear use. This method works with a wide variety of nuclei and easily accommodates proton decoupling, a necessity for working with ¹³C.