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Abstract It has recently been shown that a bolus of hyperpolarized nuclear spins can yield stimulated emission signals similar in nature to maser signals, potentially enabling new ways of sensing hyperpolarized contrast media, including most notably [1‐¹³C]pyruvate that is under evaluation in over 50 clinical trials for metabolic imaging of cancer. The stimulated NMR signal emissions lasting for minutes do not require radio‐frequency excitation, offering unprecedented advantages compared to conventional MR sensing. However, creating nuclear spin maser emission is challenging in practice due to stringent fundamental requirements, making practical in vivo applications hardly possible using conventional passive MR detectors. Here, we demonstrate the utility of a wireless NMR maser detector, the quality factor of which was enhanced 22‐fold (to 1,670) via parametric pumping. This active‐feedback technique breaks the intrinsic fundamental limit of NMR detector circuit quality factor. We show the use of parametric pumping to reduce the threshold requirement for inducing nuclear spin masing at 300 MHz resonance frequency in a preclinical MRI scanner. Indeed, stimulated emission from hyperpolarized protons was obtained under highly unfavorable conditions of low magnetic field homogeneity (T₂* of 3 ms). Greater gains of the quality factor of the MR detector (up to 1 million) were also demonstrated. 

Abstract Signal Amplification By Reversible Exchange in SHield Enabled Alignment Transfer (SABRE‐SHEATH) is investigated to achieve rapid hyperpolarization of¹³C₁spins of [1‐¹³C]pyruvate, using parahydrogen as the source of nuclear spin order. Pyruvate exchange with an iridium polarization transfer complex can be modulated via a sensitive interplay between temperature and co‐ligation of DMSO and H₂O. Order‐unity¹³C (>50 %) polarization of catalyst‐bound [1‐¹³C]pyruvate is achieved in less than 30 s by restricting the chemical exchange of [1‐¹³C]pyruvate at lower temperatures. On the catalyst bound pyruvate, 39 % polarization is measured using a 1.4 T NMR spectrometer, and extrapolated to >50 % at the end of build‐up in situ. The highest measured polarization of a 30‐mM pyruvate sample, including free and bound pyruvate is 13 % when using 20 mM DMSO and 0.5 M water in CD₃OD. Efficient¹³C polarization is also enabled by favorable relaxation dynamics in sub‐microtesla magnetic fields, as indicated by fast polarization buildup rates compared to theT₁spin‐relaxation rates (e. g., ∼0.2 s⁻¹versus ∼0.1 s⁻¹, respectively, for a 6 mM catalyst‐[1‐¹³C]pyruvate sample). Finally, the catalyst‐bound hyperpolarized [1‐¹³C]pyruvate can be released rapidly by cycling the temperature and/or by optimizing the amount of water, paving the way to future biomedical applications of hyperpolarized [1‐¹³C]pyruvate produced via comparatively fast and simple SABRE‐SHEATH‐based approaches.