Shaping the future of EPR with cryoprobes and superconducting microresonators

Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) is a highly powerful tool employed across different disciplines including structural biology, material science, quantum information processing and many others.

EPR provides essential information about a local unpaired electron spin environment, electronic properties and dynamics of various paramagnetic centers.

However, a relatively low sensitivity of a conventional EPR often limits its applicability to study small-volume systems (e.g. single biological cells).

Recently, major advances in the EPR sensitivity enhancement have been achieved in the field of quantum information processing using superconducting microresonators and low-noise cryogenic microwave preamplifiers.

The full potential of this highly sensitive EPR approach to investigate typical spin systems in other areas still remains to be shown, which is critical for its wider application in different scientific disciplines.

The main goal of this Marie Skłodowska-Curie project is adaptation of these developments to study conventional spin systems and their application to solve currently EPR-inaccessible intriguing problems in biochemistry.

The spin systems to be studied include a miniature amount of spin labels, a single RNA-binding protein droplet and spins in a single bacterium. The researcher, dr.

Mantas Šimėnas, will be employed in his home country (Lithuania) at Vilnius University (VU) under the supervision by prof. Jūras Banys.

He will bring to VU a valuable experience on EPR of various spin systems, cryoprobeheads and microresonators gained during his postdoctoral fellowship at University College London.

During the project, the researcher will grow as a specialist of highly sensitive EPR techniques and their applications, acquire new knowledge of spins in biochemical systems and reach scientific maturity.