Chemically induced magnetic spin intensity

Another burst of activity in free radical research occurred in the 1960s and 1970s, after several reports of anomalous intensities in the EPR spectra of photochemically or radiolytically produced radicals, and in the NMR spectra of the products from free radical reactions in solution." " These so-called chemically induced magnetic spin polarization (CIDNP and CIDEP) phenomena provided a wealth of mechanistic, kinetic, dynamic, and structural information and were a cornerstone of carbon-centered free radical research for the better part of three decades. The umbrella term for this area of research is spin chemistry, which is defined as the chemistry of spin-selective processes. 

Time-resolved laser flash ESR spectroscopy generates radicals with nonequilibrium spin populations and causes spectra with unusual signal directions and intensities. The signals may show absorption, emission, or both and be enhanced as much as 100-fold. Deviations from Boltzmann intensities, first noted in 1963, are known as chemically induced dynamic electron polarization (CIDEP). Because the splitting pattern of the intermediate remains unaffected, the CIDEP enhancement facilitates the detection of short-lived radicals. A related technique, fluorescence detected magnetic resonance (FDMR) offers improved time resolution and its sensitivity exceeds that of ESR. The FDMR experiment probes short-lived radical ion pairs, which form reaction products in electronically excited states that decay radiatively. ... 

Another technique for the study of reactions that is highly specific for radical processes is known as CIDNP, an abbreviation for chemically induced dynamic nuclear polarization." The instrumentation required for such studies is a normal NMR spectrometer. CIDNP is observed as a strong perturbation of the intensity of NMR signals in products formed in certain types of free radical reactions. CIDNP is observed when the normal population of nuclear spin states dictated by the Boltzmann distribution is disturbed by the presence of an unpaired electron. The intense magnetic moment associated with an electron causes a polarization of nuclear spin states, which is manifested by enhanced absorption or emission, or both, in the NMR spectrum of the diamagnetic product of a free radical reaction. The technique is less general than EPR spectroscopy because not all free radicals can be expected to exhibit the phenomenon. 

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