[dekhn]

The signals are weak, but more importantly, the signals are being detected in a volume wiht a huge magnetic field. You can't even put a digital circuit anywhere in the amplifier. When I worked on the NMR all the monitors in the room were shifted toward the magnet, it would wipe your credit cards, and to adjust the amplifier involved sitting under a multi-ton device twiddling knobs to minimize the impedence.

Think of NMR as bespoke. Like a large luxury liner built for a rich individual. It's not ever going to be a zodiac.

[kragen]

As I understand it, the magnetic field doesn't have to be voluminous; it just has to be strong and uniform. It can be arbitrarily small as long as it's large compared to an atom, which is why benchtop NMR machines can exist at all, though they won't ever be truly miniature unless either we can also miniaturize the cryostats and refrigerant supply, or we can find a usable room-temperature superconductor. Am I misunderstanding something? As I said, you know a lot more about this than I do.

[dekhn]

NMR is an ensemble measurement technique. You can't measure the magnetic moment of a single molecule. Instead, you need a highly pure sample and lots of it. That has to be in solvent (I'm leaving out solid spinning NMR here, that's a different ballgame entirely), enough solvent to keep the sample in solution.

I think you're wasting your time trying to improve NMR. The value of the technique isn't worth it.