Line narrowing dipolar decoupling

The most efficient way to speed up spin diffusion is the so-called r.f.-driven spin-diffusion experiment [15, 19] where the chemical-shift differences are removed by r.f. irradiation. For small chemical-shift differences, r.f.-driven spin diffusion can be implemented by applying a continuous-wave r.f. field to the S-spins which can theoretically be described by a transformation into a tilted rotating frame (see Appendix B). To zeroth-order average Hamiltonian theory the chemical-shift differences are removed (fl, — fty = 0 for all spins i and j) and the dipolar-coupling frequencies are scaled by a factor s = -1/2. The scaled-down (or ideally vanishing) chemical-shift difference allows one to keep the zero-quantum line narrow by decoupling the protons. This results in fast spin-diffusion rates. Furthermore, the rate constants are now determined by the S-spin coupling network, and the proton spins need not be considered for the data analysis. 

However, it is found that a combination of techniques, such as proton dipolar decoupling (removes the dipolar interactions), magic angle spinning (reduces the chemical shift tensor to the isotropic chemical shift value), and cross-polarization (increases the sensitivity of rare spins, like 13C) applied to a solid state material, results in sharp lines for 13C nuclei in the solid state10). Thus, the observation of narrow lines or high resolution NMR in the solid state is possible. 

In 1958, long before dipolar decoupling and multiple pulse methods were developed, a very different approach was introduced in an attempt to narrow magnetic dipolar broadened NMR lines in solids. This method focuses on the geometric part of the Hamiltonians (Eqs. 7.6,7.8, and 7.17), namely the term (3 cos2 0—1). 

For such an experiment to work, we have to be able to distinguish the different domains during the evolution and the detection period of the two-dimensional experiment. Since proton spectral resolution in typical solids is very poor, we have to use homonuclear dipolar-decoupling methods to narrow the lines sufficiently to obtain spectral resolution. The 2D spin-diffusion CRAMPS spectrum was first recorded by Caravatti et al. [68] for blends of polystyrene (PS) and polyvinyl methyl-ether (PVME). There are other methods to generate an initial nonequilibrium polarization based on differences in linewidth or relaxation times. The reader is referred to the excellent book of Schmidt-Rohr and Spiess [67] for an overview. 

The cross polarization, or CP, process may be used with any or all of the line narrowing techniques to obtain NMR spectra of solids with resolution approaching that of liquids ). A combination of cross polarization (CP), magic angle spinning (MAS) and dipolar decoupling were used to obtain the spectrum of a very insoluble polyphenylene sulfide (Ryton) as shown in Fig. 6. 

The spin-lattice relaxation time for in solids is very long (several minutes). Since the nuclei have to relax before another excitation pulse can be sent, this requires hours of instrument time in order to collect a spectrum of reasonable intensity. A pulse technique called cross-polarization can be used to reduce this effect by having the protons interact with the carbon nuclei, causing them to relax more rapidly. FTNMR systems for sohd samples include the hardware and software to produce narrow line spectra from solid samples in a reasonable amount of time using high-power dipolar decoupling, MAS, and cross-polarization. 

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