Home▸Chemistry & Materials▸NMR Spectroscopy: Reading Molecular Structure from Spinning Nuclei

🧲 NMR Spectroscopy: Reading Molecular Structure from Spinning Nuclei

Discover how nuclear magnetic resonance reads the local chemical environment of individual atoms by measuring the precise frequency at which spinning nuclei precess inside a strong magnetic field, the same physics behind MRI.

Chemistry & Materials3DModerate60 FPS⚡ Plasma

The simulation shows a population of nuclear spins precessing around an external magnetic field at the Larmor frequency, being tipped by a radio-frequency pulse, and then relaxing back into alignment while their decaying signal (the free induction decay) is transformed into a peaked frequency spectrum with chemical shifts and multiplet splitting.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

🎮 How to Use

Adjust the external field strength slider to see the Larmor frequency shift, choose different simulated chemical environments to see their peaks move along the chemical shift axis, and toggle neighboring spins on or off to watch spin-spin coupling split a single peak into a doublet, triplet, or quartet.

💡 Did You Know?

The 2003 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded for discoveries that turned nuclear magnetic resonance into magnetic resonance imaging, and modern clinical MRI scanners use magnetic fields tens of thousands of times stronger than Earth's own magnetic field to align and probe the hydrogen nuclei in water throughout the human body.

⚙ Under the hood

nmr spectroscopynuclear magnetic resonancechemical shiftlarmor frequencychemistryspectroscopymri

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install