| Authorised form of name | Freeman; Raymond (1932 - 2022); Professor; Chemist |
| Dates | 1932 - 2022 |
| Nationality | British |
| Place of birth | Long Eaton, Derbyshire, England |
| Date of birth | 06/01/1932 |
| Date of death | 01/05/2022 |
| Occupation | Chemist |
| Research field | Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) |
| Activity | Education:
Nottingham High School (-1949); Lincoln College, University of Oxford. MA, PhD (1958), Doctor of Science (1975)
Career:
Unpaid millitary service in the Royal Air Force, radar instructor with the rank of acting corporal; member of Rex Richard's research group on NMR of less common Nuclei, University of Oxford;Post Doctoral Researcher in Anatole Abragam's research group on NMR, Saclay (1957); Basic Physics Division, National Physical Laboratory UK (1959-1961); Varian Associates, Palo Alton, California (1961-1973); University of Oxford, University Lecturer and Fellow of Magdalen College (1973); John Humphrey Plummer Professor of Magnetic Resonance and Fellow of Jesus College, University of Cambridge (1987-1989); retired (1999); Emeritus Professor of Magnetic Resonance, Jesus College, University of Cambridge; continued to carry out research with Eriks Kupce.
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| Membership category | Fellow |
| Date of election | 15/03/1979 |
| Age at election | 47 |
| RSActivity | Medals and prizes:
Leverhulme Medal 1990; Royal Medal 2002 |
| Relationships | Wife: Anne-Marie Périnet-Marquet |
| OtherInfo | Ray Freeman's career was devoted to the study of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). Initially, he focused on the theory and application of double resonance and double-quantum effects, using them to determine relative signs of coupling constants. He devised an inversion recovery method for measuring spin-lattice relaxation times, and the ';INADEQUATE' pulse sequence for enhancing the sensitivity of carbon-13 in natural isotopic abundance.
He was one of the first to investigate the methodology and applications of two-dimensional NMR, a technique now routinely exploited for molecular structure determination. He devised the 'INEPT' coherence transfer experiment for enhancing signals from low-sensitivity nuclei, which became a standard module in many pulse sequences. He also explored the 'BURP' scheme for making radiofrequency pulses band selective. By devising novel cycles of composite or adiabatic radiofrequency pulses, he enhanced the efficiency of broadband decoupling by orders of magnitude.
Ray achieved sparse sampling of multidimensional spectra by a novel projection-reconstruction scheme, significantly reducing experimental durations. He achieved a similar advantage by encoding the excitation according to a Hadamard matrix.
Author of 'A Handbook of Medical Rasonance' (1987), 'Spin Choreography; basic steps in high resolution NMR' (1996) and 'Magnetic Resonance in Chemistry and Medicine' (2003).
He received the Leverhulme Medal in 1990 for introducing new techniques in high resolution nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, particularly the development of two-dimensional Fourier transform methods.
He received the Royal Medal in 2002 in recognition of his seminal contributions to the development and understanding of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) methods. NMR is today the prime analytical tool for the study of molecular structure and dynamics, with enormous impact in chemistry. |
| Source | https://royalsociety.org/people/raymond-freeman-11466/ |
| Code | NA3590 |
Archives associated with this Fellow
| RefNo | Title | Date |
| EC/1979/12 | Freeman, Raymond: certificate of election to the Royal Society | 1976 |