Physical Basics of NMR

This chapter gives a short introduction to the physical and technical basics of nuclear magnetic resonance. It describes the formation of the NMR signal from the generation of the magnetization to the detection in the spectrometer. The behaviour of nuclear spins in a magnetic field is shown based on classical dynamics. The formation of the free induction decay and the spin echoes, as well as the concepts of longitudinal and transverse relaxation are explained. The basics of signal acquisition and reconstruction are presented. The concept of chemical shift is introduced with its application in NMR spectroscopy.