Nuclear magnetic resonance with neutrons

Borah, B., C.W. Chen, W. Egan, M. Miller, A. Wlodawer, and J.S. Cohen. 1985. Nuclear magnetic resonance and neutron diffraction studies of the complex of ribonuclease A with uridine vanadate, a transition-state analogue. J. Biochem. 24 2058-2067. 

As with other diffraction techniques (X-ray and electron), neutron diffraction is a nondestructive technique that can be used to determine the positions of atoms in crystalline materials. Other uses are phase identification and quantitation, residual stress measurements, and average particle-size estimations for crystalline materials. Since neutrons possess a magnetic moment, neutron diffraction is sensitive to the ordering of magnetically active atoms. It differs from many site-specific analyses, such as nuclear magnetic resonance, vibrational, and X-ray absorption spectroscopies, in that neutron diffraction provides detailed structural information averaged over thousands of A. It will be seen that the major differences between neutron diffraction and other diffiaction techniques, namely the extraordinarily... 

The techniques available to achieve molecular structure determinations are limited. They include structural analysis with diffraction techniques—such as electron, neutron, and x-ray diffraction—and various absorption and emission techniques of electromagnetic radiation—such as microwave spectroscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). For molecules with unpaired spins a companion technique of electron spin resonance spectroscopy (ESR) is highly informative. 

Structural information at the molecular level can be extracted using a number of experimental techniques which include, but are not restricted to, optical rotation, infra-red and ultra-violet spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance in the solid state and in solution, diffraction using electrons, neutrons or x-rays. Not all of them, however, are capable of yielding structural details to the same desirable extent. By far, experience shows that x-ray fiber diffraction (2), in conjunction with computer model building, is the most powerful tool which enables to establish the spatial arrangement of atoms in polymer molecules. 

PAD (perturbed angular distribution) is a variation of PAC with nuclear excitation by a particle beam from an accelerator. QMS is quasielastic MdBbauer-spectroscopy, QNS is quasielastic neutron spectroscopy. For MOBbauer spectroscopy (MS), perturbed angular correlation (PAC), and /J-nuclear magnetic resonance (/3-NMR), the accessible SE jump frequencies are determined by the life time (rN) of the nuclear states involved in the spectroscopic process. Since NMR is a resonance method, the resonance frequency of the experiment sets the time window. With neutron scattering, the time window is determined by the possible energy resolution of the spectrometer as explained later. 

The process of molecular diffusion may be viewed conceptionally as a sequence of jumps with statistically varying jump lengths and residence times. Information about the mean jump length /(P and the mean residence time t, which might be of particular interest for a deeper understanding of the elementary steps of catalysis, may be provided by spectroscopic methods, in particular by quasielastic neutron scattering (see next Section) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). 

Now that the range of likely shapes has been defined by experiments on related molecules and by energy calculations, we focus on the details of specific structures that have been observed for real, crystalline cellulose molecules, primarily by x-ray, neutron, and electron diffraction studies. A number of landmark concepts have been established with electron microscopy, as well. Infrared (IR), Raman, and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy have all also been important in the quest for understanding cellulose structure. Such data, while so far not able to provide complete definitive structures themselves, constitutes additional criteria that any proposed structure must be able to explain. In addition, unlike crystallography, the resolution of spectroscopic methods is not directly affected by the dimensions of the... 

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