Perttu Hilla

I’m a postdoctoral researcher in NMR Research Unit, with broad interests spanning:

• Theoretical and computational physics and chemistry
• Chemical physics and physical chemistry
• Spin physics and magnetic resonance
• Mathematics
• Programming.

I have a background in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) of the noble gas xenon and its applications. Xenon is used as a sensitive "chemical spy" to probe the microscopic structure and dynamics of materials and biological systems. A particularly promising application are xenon NMR biosensors, "molecular machines" that can be used to detect specific molecules, e.g., proteins produced by cancer cells, at extremely low concentrations.

Currently my research focuses more broadly on multiscale modeling of NMR spectroscopy and spin hyperpolarisation processes, combining molecular dynamics simulations, quantum-chemical calculations, and spin-dynamics simulations. Lately I have been particularly interested in the theory and modeling of spin relaxation. The underlying physics of spin relaxation is the same as that used to understand quantum decoherence in quantum computing science.