Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy time-correlation function

Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy is another powerful technique for probing local chain dynamics. With this tedmique, the spectral drasity of local relaxational frequendes, spin-lattice rdaxation times and oriratational correlation times are characterized. Here, the spectral density function is the Fourier transform of the OACF assodated with the investigate intemudear vector, given as... 

The isothermal time dependence of relaxation and fluctuation due to molecular motions in liquids at equilibrium usually cannot be described by the simple linear exponential function exp(-t/r), where t is the relaxation time. This fact is well known, especially for polymers, from measurements of the time or frequency dependence of the response of the equilibrium liquid to external stimuli such as in mechanical [6], dielectric [7, 33], and light-scattering [15, 34] measurements, and nuclear-magnetic-resonance spectroscopy [14]. The correlation or relaxation function measured usually decays slower than the exponential function and this feature is often referred to as non-exponential decay or non-exponentiality. Since the same molecular motions are responsible for structural recovery, certainly we can expect that the time dependence of the structural-relaxation function under non-equilibrium conditions is also non-exponential. An experiment by Kovacs on structural relaxation involving a more complicated thermal history showed that the structural-relaxation function even far from equilibrium is non-exponential. For example (Fig. 2.7), poly(vinyl acetate) is first subjected to a down-quench from Tq = 40 °C to 10 °C, and then, holding the temperature constant, the sample... 

Liquids are difficult to model because, on the one hand, many-body interactions are complicated on the other hand, liquids lack the symmetry of crystals which makes many-body systems tractable [364, 376, 94]. No rigorous solutions currently exist for the many-body problem of the liquid state. Yet the molecular properties of liquids are important for example, most chemistry involves solutions of one kind or another. Significant advances have recently been made through the use of spectroscopy (i.e., infrared, Raman, neutron scattering, nuclear magnetic resonance, dielectric relaxation, etc.) and associated time correlation functions of molecular properties. 

The above equations provide two alternative routes for calculating kinetic coefficients from simulations of a system at equilibrium. Averages in the above equations are ensemble averages, hence the results are ensemble-sensitive. The time correlation functions contain more information than just the kinetic coefficients. The Fourier transforms of time correlation functions can be related to experimental spectra. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) measures the time correlation functions of magnetization, which is related to the reorientation of particular bonds in the polymer molecule inelastic neutron scattering experiments measure the time correlation functions of the atom positions infrared and Raman scattering spectroscopies measure the time correlation function of dipole moments and polarizabilities of the molecules. 

Electron spin echo spectroscopy (ESE) monitors the spontaneous generation of microwave energy as a function of the timing of a specific excitation scheme, i.e. two or more short resonant microwave pulses. This is illustrated in Fig. 7. In a typical two-pulse excitation, the initial n/2 pulse places the spin system in a coherent state. Subsequently, the spin packets, each characterized by their own Larmor precession frequency m, start to dephase. A second rx-pulse at time r effectively reverses the time evolution of the spin packet magnetizations, i.e. the spin packets start to rephase, and an emission of microwave energy (the primary echo) occurs at time 2r. The echo ampHtude, as a fvmction of r, constitutes the ESE spectrum and relaxation processes lead to an irreversible loss of phase correlation. The characteristic time for the ampHtude decay is called the phase memory time T. This decay is often accompanied by a modulation of the echo amplitude, which is due to weak electron-nuclear hyperfine interactions. The analysis of the modulation frequencies and ampHtudes forms the basis of the electron spin echo envelope modulation spectroscopy (ESEEM). 

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