Research

Our group uses and develops solid-state Nuclear Magnetic Resonance methods to study materials and biological systems, as well as fundamental phenomena in physical chemistry. You can find here a list of instrumental devices available in our lab, and the list of publications of Prof. B. Meier.

 

The main axes of our research are the following:

1. Development of new methods in solid-state NMR

A particular emphasis is put on the development of new and the improvement of existing polarization-transfer techniques in spin-1/2 as well as in half-integer quadrupolar spin systems. We are also interested in the refinement of the theoretical concepts for the description of spin systems under time-dependent Hamiltonians (Floquet theory) as well as numerical simulations using the spin-simulation package Gamma.

2. Application of solid-state NMR techniques to materials and biological systems

We are investigating the local ordering phenomena in macroscopically disordered systems, e.g. glasses, amorphous synthetic polymers, polymer blends and biopolymers using solid-state NMR. We have started characterizing the structure of peptides, proteins and other biological systems, such as lipid membranes and spider silk. A main focus in the lab is the characterization of protein fibrils (amyloids, prions).

3. Magnetic Resonance Force Microscopy

Magnetic resonance force microscopy (MRFM) is a method using the spin density to image objects in the micro- and nanometer range.