Our group’s research combines NMR transport measurements with multi-scale structural and dynamical information to understand the behaviors of soft materials. NMR diffusometry represents a reasonably distinct area of NMR, in parallel with spectroscopy and imaging, and diffusometry enables species-specific and length-scale and time-scale specific measurements of molecular motions. Soft materials such as polymer ion conductors, liquid crystals, structured liquids, and micelle solutions present unique challenges to NMR practitioners because they often do not fall cleanly into the traditional categories “fast tumbling liquid” or “rigid solid.” Learning about these “intermediate state” systems requires fresh perspectives and correlations between many different types of measurements. Using these perspectives, we can build models for material properties and ultimately control them. In this talk, I will touch on transport phenomena in polymer-based systems that include nanometer-scale confinement in separations membranes and Li-battery electrolytes, and drug molecule and polymer chain partitioning in micelles. I will also describe a few of the classic (and yet still ubiquitous) pitfalls in the collection and interpretation of NMR diffusion data.
