Magic angle spinning

Sample tubes are hollow cylinders coming in a variety of outer diameters ranging from 0.70 to 7 mm, mounted with a turbine cap.

The rotors are typically made from zirconium oxide, although other ceramic materials (silicon nitride) or polymers (poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), polyoxymethylene (POM)) can be found.

[6] The magic-angle-turning (MAT) technique introduced by Gan employs slow (approximately 30 Hz) rotation of a powdered sample at the magic angle, in concert with pulses synchronized to 1/3 of the rotor period, to obtain isotropic-shift information in one dimension of a 2D spectrum.

[7] Rather than using cylindrical rotors, spinning spheres can be spun stably at the magic angle, which can be used to increase the filling factor of the coils, hence improve the sensitivity.

Magic angle spinning can be used to characterize large insoluble systems, including biological assemblies and intact viruses, that cannot be studied with other methods.