Richard R. Ernst

Richard R. Ernst (born August 14, 1933, Winterthur, Switzerland—died June 4, 2021, Winterthur) was a Swiss chemist and teacher who in 1991 won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his development of techniques for high-resolution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Ernst’s refinements made NMR techniques a basic and indispensable tool in chemistry and also extended their usefulness to other sciences.

Ernst received both a B.A. in chemistry (1957) and a Ph.D. in physical chemistry (1962) from the Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich. From 1963 to 1968 he worked as a research chemist in Palo Alto, California. In 1966, working with an American colleague, Ernst discovered that the sensitivity of NMR techniques (hitherto limited to analysis of only a few nuclei) could be dramatically increased by replacing the slow, sweeping radio waves traditionally used in NMR spectroscopy with short, intense pulses. His discovery enabled analysis of a great many more types of nuclei and smaller amounts of materials. In 1968 Ernst returned to Switzerland to teach at his alma mater; he was made assistant professor in 1970 and full professor in 1976 before retiring in 1998.

His second major contribution to the field of NMR spectroscopy was a technique that enabled a high-resolution “two-dimensional” study of larger molecules than had previously been accessible to NMR. With Ernst’s refinements, scientists were able to determine the three-dimensional structure of organic and inorganic compounds and of biological macromolecules such as proteins; to study the interaction between biological molecules and other substances such as metal ions, water, and drugs; to identify chemical species; and to study the rates of chemical reactions.

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Ernst also was credited with many inventions and held several patents in his field. Science + Dharma = Social Responsibility (2009) is a documentary about his life and work.