207Pb chemical shift thermometer at high temperature for magic angle spinning experiments

The temperature dependence of 207Pb chemical shift in magic angle spinning (MAS) NMR spectrum of Pb(NO3)2 provides a sensitive method to calibrate sample temperatures in MAS NMR. The temperature dependence is uniform in the temperature range between 30 degrees C and 400 degrees C. The NMR sensitivity and the line width are also favorable.     

Measurement of sample temperatures under magic-angle spinning from the chemical shift and spin-lattice relaxation rate of 79Br in KBr powder

Accurate determination of sample temperatures in solid state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) with magic-angle spinning (MAS) can be problematic, particularly because frictional heating and heating by radio-frequency irradiation can make the internal sample temperature significantly different from the temperature outside the MAS rotor. This paper demonstrates the use of (79)Br chemical shifts and spin-lattice relaxation rates in KBr powder as temperature-dependent parameters for the determination of internal sample temperatures. Advantages of this method include high signal-to-noise, proximity of the (79)Br NMR frequency to that of (13)C, applicability from 20 K to 320 K or higher, and simultaneity with adjustment of the MAS axis direction. We show that spin-lattice relaxation in KBr is driven by a quadrupolar mechanism. We demonstrate a simple approach to including KBr powder in hydrated samples, such as biological membrane samples, hydrated amyloid fibrils, and hydrated microcrystalline proteins, that allows direct assessment of the effects of frictional and radio-frequency heating under experimentally relevant conditions.     

魔角旋转固体核磁共振探头中转子的研制

转子作为魔角旋转（MAS）探头一个至关重要的部件,是固体样品高速旋转的载体,被广泛应用于各种固体核磁共振（NMR）实验.但国内关于MAS转子的研究极少,以至其长期被国外市场垄断.本文通过对MAS转子的深入研究,设计了常规的4 mm MAS转子;并对MAS转子进行了流固耦合仿真,分析其应力应变大小;同时进行了模态仿真,确定了MAS转子的各阶振型及临界转速;最后制作了转子,进行了转速测试和固体NMR实验.结果表明,本文设计和制作的转子能在14 kHz转速下正常运行,并在4 kHz及12.5 kHz转速下采集了金刚烷标样的¹H NMR信号,结果表明该转子能满足常规固体NMR实验的需求.     

Using heat to control the sample spinning speed in MAS NMR

A new approach using temperature to control the spinning speed of a sample rotor in magic-angle spinning NMR is presented. Instead of an electro-mechanical valve that regulates the flow of drive gas to control the spinning speed in traditional MAS NMR systems, we use a small heater wire located directly in the stator. The sample spinning speed is controlled very accurately with a surprisingly low heating power of 1 W. Results on a benchtop unit demonstrate the capability of the system.     

生物固体核磁共振中样品发热的研究进展

近年来,固体核磁共振被广泛应用于膜蛋白、纤维化蛋白等体系的结构和功能研究．在固体核磁共振实验中,快速魔角旋转或高功率射频场照射等实验条件将导致样品发热．生物样品发热能导致严重的后果,例如样品温度的快速升高,信号分辨率、信噪比的降低,发热严重时甚至导致样品的不可逆损坏．近年来,人们对样品发热问题进行了一些研究,发现通过优化样品制备条件或固体核磁共振实验条件,以及改进探头设计等手段,可以在一定程度上减轻样品发热．该文主要综述了生物固体核磁共振研究中导致样品发热的原因和减轻样品发热的方法．     

Biomolecular solid state NMR with magic-angle spinning at 25K

A magic-angle spinning (MAS) probe has been constructed which allows the sample to be cooled with helium, while the MAS bearing and drive gases are nitrogen. The sample can be cooled to 25 K using roughly 3 L/h of liquid helium, while the 4-mm diameter rotor spins at 6.7 kHz with good stability (±5 Hz) for many hours. Proton decoupling fields up to at least 130 kHz can be applied. This helium-cooled MAS probe enables a variety of one-dimensional and two-dimensional NMR experiments on biomolecular solids and other materials at low temperatures, with signal-to-noise proportional to 1/T. We show examples of low-temperature ¹³C NMR data for two biomolecular samples, namely the peptide Aβ_14–23 in the form of amyloid fibrils and the protein HP35 in frozen glycerol/water solution. Issues related to temperature calibration, spin–lattice relaxation at low temperatures, paramagnetic doping of frozen solutions, and ¹³C MAS NMR linewidths are discussed.     

Nondestructive high-resolution solid-state NMR of rotating thin films at the magic-angle

We present a new approach to nondestructive magic-angle spinning (MAS) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) for thin films. In this scheme, the sample put on the top of a rotor is spun using the conventional MAS system, and the NMR signals are detected with an additional coil. Stable spinning of disk-shaped samples with diameters of 7 mm and 12 mm at 14.2 and 7 kHz are feasible. We present 7Li MAS NMR experiments of a thin-film sample of LiCoO2 with a thickness of 200 nm. Taking advantage of the nondestructive feature of the experiment, we also demonstrate ex situ experiments, by tracing conformation change upon annealing for various durations. This approach opens the door for in situ MAS NMR of thin-film devices as well.     

Experimental method for low-temperature reaction studies in sealed samples by 13C CP/MAS NMR

A new, simple, and inexpensive technique is presented for monitoring high-resolution solid-state NMR of ¹³C at temperatures ranging between 85 and 450 K. In this procedure, the reaction conditions are controlled by preparing samples at 77 K in 5 mm NMR tubes, while attached to a vacuum system. The NMR tubes are prefitted with a rotor for spinning. After preparation, the samples are sealed, transferred to the double-resonance MAS NMR probe, and analyzed, all while the sample temperature is maintained as low as 85 K. The spinning rates vary from 3.0 kHz at 85 K to 5.2 kHz at 300 K using nitrogen drive gas. Probe design and performance, sample-preparation procedure, and details of the low-temperature experiment are described. In general, the technique may be applied in studies of low-temperature reaction mechanisms and kinetics. ¹³C CP/MAS spectra of ethylene adsorbed on silica-supported ruthenium catalyst are presented to illustrate its performance and possible application.     

Heating of samples induced by fast magic-angle spinning

Intense sample heating through high-speed magic-angle spinning (MAS; up to 58 K temperature difference) is demonstrated. The role of probehead and spinner design, as well as that of the temperature of the bearing air on the heating of a rotating sample, is examined. MAS-induced heating can affect the accurate determination of the isotropic value of the chemical shift as well as the principal values, asymmetry and anisotropy parameters of the chemical shift tensor. In some cases, a very large temperature gradient (12 K) within the fast rotating sample was found, which may limit the resolution of high-speed 1H MAS nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra.     

The evaluation of different MAS techniques at low spinning rates in aqueous samples and in the presence of magnetic susceptibility gradients

It was recently demonstrated that the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) linewidths for stationary biological samples are dictated mainly by magnetic susceptibility gradients, and that phase-altered spinning sideband (PASS) and phase-corrected magic angle turning (PHORMAT) solid-state NMR techniques employing slow and ultra-slow magic angle spinning (MAS) frequencies can be used to overcome the static susceptibility broadening to yield high-resolution, spinning sideband (SSB)-free 1H NMR spectra [Magn. Reson. Med. 46 (2001) 213; 47 (2002) 829]. An additional concern is that molecular diffusion in the presence of the susceptibility gradients may limit the minimum useful MAS frequency by broadening the lines and reducing SSB suppression at low spinning frequencies. In this article the performance of PASS, PHORMAT, total sideband suppression (TOSS), and standard MAS techniques were evaluated as a function of spinning frequency. To this end, 300MHz (7.05T) 1H NMR spectra were acquired via PASS, TOSS, PHORMAT, and standard MAS NMR techniques for a 230-microm-diameter spherical glass bead pack saturated with water. The resulting strong magnetic susceptibility gradients result in a static linewidth of about 3.7kHz that is larger than observed for a natural biological sample, constituting a worst-case scenario for examination of susceptibility broadening effects. RESULTS: (I) TOSS produces a distorted centerband and fails in suppressing the SSBs at a spinning rate below approximately 1kHz. (II) Standard MAS requires spinning speeds above a few hundred Hz to separate the centerband from the SSBs. (III) PASS produces nearly SSB-free spectra at spinning speeds as low as 30Hz, and is only limited by T(2)-induced signal losses. (IV) With PHORMAT, a SSB-free isotropic projection is obtained at any spinning rate, even at an ultra-slow spinning rate as slow as 1Hz. (V) It is found empirically that the width of the isotropic peak is proportional to F(-x), where F is the spinning frequency, and x=2 for MAS, 0.84 for PASS, and 0.5 for PHORMAT.     

59Co chemical shift anisotropy and quadrupole coupling for K3Co(CN)6 from MQMAS and MAS NMR spectroscopy

59Co triple-quantum (3Q) MAS and single-pulse MAS NMR spectra of K3Co(CN)6 have been obtained at 14.1 T and used in a comparison of these methods for determination of small chemical shift anisotropies for spin I = 7/2 nuclei. From the 3QMAS NMR spectrum a spinning sideband manifold in the isotropic dimension with high resolution is reconstructed from the intensities of all spinning sidebands in the 3QMAS spectrum. The chemical shift anisotropy (CSA) parameters determined from this spectrum are compared with those obtained from MAS NMR spectra of (i) the complete manifold of spinning sidebands for the central and satellite transitions and of (ii) the second-order quadrupolar lineshapes for the centerband and spinning sidebands from the central transition. A good agreement between the three data sets, all of high precision, is obtained for the shift anisotropy (delta(sigma) = delta(iso) - delta(zz)) whereas minor deviations are observed for the CSA asymmetry parameter (eta(sigma)). The temperature dependence of the isotropic 59Co chemical shift has been studied over a temperature range from -28 to +76 degrees C. A linear and positive temperature dependence of 0.97 ppm/degree C is observed.     

HR/MAS高分辨魔角微量探头用于天然橡胶固体1H、13C NMR测试及其与液体BBO探头、固体CP/MAS探头测试的比较

采用BRUKER高分辨魔角微量探头（HR/MAS），液相宽带BBO探头和固体CP/MAS探头，对天然橡胶固体、乳液以及天然橡胶溶于氘代苯的溶液进行了¹H、¹³C 1D和2D NMR谱的测试和比较. 发现HR/MAS探头用于天然橡胶固体和乳液时可以得到高分辨的¹H、¹³C谱，克服了CP/MAS探头测试固体¹³C NMR谱或者是固体¹H NMR谱时，谱图存在S/N值可能较小、谱峰可能宽化的弱点.     

Hardware modification of a 7 mm MAS NMR probe to a single-crystal goniometer

Tensorial terms of the Hamiltonian can be measured by solid-state single-crystal nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy which requires a goniometer NMR probehead. Goniometer probes; however, are not standard parts of solid NMR spectrometers and are available only at a much higher price than magic-angle spinning (MAS) probeheads widely used in research. Due to requirements of MAS experiments, modern probeheads are designed for small ceramic rotors, which are 1-4 mm in diameter, to reach very high angular frequencies, so there are several older 7 mm MAS probeheads used rarely todays in NMR laboratories. In this paper, a simple method is presented how to rebuild step-by-step a 7 mm Bruker MAS probehead to be suitable for single-crystal spectroscopy. In the second part (31)P chemical shift tensors of Na(4)P(2)O(7) x 10H(2)O are determined to demonstrate the functionality of the rebuilt probehead.     

Practical aspects of shimming a high resolution magic angle spinning probe

High resolution magic angle spinning (HRMAS) has become an extremely versatile tool to study heterogeneous systems. HRMAS relies on magic angle spinning of the sample to average out to zero magnetic susceptibility differences in the sample and to obtain resonance linewidths approaching those of liquid state NMR. Shimming such samples therefore becomes an important issue. By analyzing the different sources of magnetic field perturbations present in a sample under MAS conditions, we propose a simple protocol to obtain optimum shim settings in HRMAS. In the case of aqueous samples, we show that the lock level cannot be used as a reliable indicator of the quality of the shims at high spinning speeds. This effect is explained by the presence of temperature gradients imparted by the sample rotation.     

Experimental and numerical examination of eddy (Foucault) currents in rotating micro-coils: Generation of heat and its impact on sample temperature

The application of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to systems of limited quantity has stimulated the use of micro-coils (diameter <1 mm). One method recently proposed for the union of micro-coils with Magic Angle sample Spinning (MAS), involves the integration of a tuned micro-coil circuit within standard MAS rotors inductively coupled to the MAS probe coil, termed “magic-angle coil spinning” (MACS). The spinning of conductive materials results in the creation of circulating Foucault (eddy) currents, which generate heat. We report the first data acquired with a 4 mm MACS system and spinning up to 10 kHz. The need to spin faster necessitates improved methods to control heating. We propose an approximate solution to calculate the power losses (heat) from the eddy currents for a solenoidal coil, in order to provide insight into the functional dependencies of Foucault currents. Experimental tests of the dependencies reveal conditions which result in reduced sample heating and negligible temperature distributions over the sample volume.     

Characterisation of sol-gel prepared (HfO2)x(SiO2)1-x (x=0.1, 0.2 and 0.4) by 1H, 13C, 17 O and 29Si MAS NMR, FTIR and TGA

The HfO2-SiO2 system is attracting interest as a possible new dielectric material in semiconductor devices. Knowledge of the location of hafnium within the silica network and the effect hafnium has on the structure will be central to the successful use of this material system in this application. Here, sol-gel techniques have been used to manufacture (HfO2)x(SiO2)1-x samples (x=0.1, 0.2 and 0.4, each heat treated at 250, 500 and 750 degrees C) and these have been characterised by magic angle spinning (MAS) NMR (1H, 13C, 17 O, 29Si), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and thermogravimetric analysis. 29Si MAS NMR showed that increasing the hafnia content decreases the connectivity of the silicate network, i.e. increases the range of differently connected SiO4 (Qn) units with more having increased numbers of non-bridging oxygens (i.e. lower n). FTIR and 17 O MAS NMR showed unequivocally that the x=0.4 sample phase-separated at higher temperatures, while in the x=0.1 sample the hafnium was homogeneously mixed into the SiO2 phase without any phase separation.     

An NMR thermometer for cryogenic magic-angle spinning NMR: the spin-lattice relaxation of (127)I in cesium iodide

The accurate temperature measurement of solid samples under magic-angle spinning (MAS) is difficult in the cryogenic regime. It has been demonstrated by Thurber et al. (J. Magn. Reson., 196 (2009) 84-87) [10] that the temperature dependent spin-lattice relaxation time constant of ⁷⁹Br in KBr powder can be useful for measuring sample temperature under MAS over a wide temperature range (20–296 K). However the value of T₁ exceeds 3 min at temperatures below 20 K, which is inconveniently long. In this communication, we show that the spin-lattice relaxation time constant of ¹²⁷I in CsI powder can be used to accurately measure sample temperature under MAS within a reasonable experimental time down to 10 K.     

Very high-resolution 1H MAS NMR of a natural polymeric material

The use of ultrafast magic angle spinning (> 30 kHz) in tandem with delayed echo acquisition is shown to yield very high-resolution lH MAS NMR spectra of complex natural organic materials. For the first time, very high-resolution 1H MAS NMR spectra are reported for cork and wood components, two natural materials with great economic importance. The effect of the spinning rate on the 1H NMR spectra was evaluated with single-pulse acquisition and delayed-echo acquisition. The delayed-echo acquisition spectra presented linewidths as sharp as 67 and 25 Hz. The narrow peaks, characterised by proton spin-spin and spin-lattice relaxation, were assigned to the isotropic chemical shifts and the general spectral features were shown to correlate with the sample chemical structure. The tentative assignments of cork 1H MAS NMR signals were presented.     

A low-E magic angle spinning probe for biological solid state NMR at 750 MHz

Crossed-coil NMR probes are a useful tool for reducing sample heating for biological solid state NMR. In a crossed-coil probe, the higher frequency ¹H field, which is the primary source of sample heating in conventional probes, is produced by a separate low-inductance resonator. Because a smaller driving voltage is required, the electric field across the sample and the resultant heating is reduced. In this work we describe the development of a magic angle spinning (MAS) solid state NMR probe utilizing a dual resonator. This dual resonator approach, referred to as “low-E,” was originally developed to reduce heating in samples of mechanically aligned membranes. The study of inherently dilute systems, such as proteins in lipid bilayers, via MAS techniques requires large sample volumes at high field to obtain spectra with adequate signal-to-noise ratio under physiologically relevant conditions. With the low-E approach, we are able to obtain homogeneous and sufficiently strong radiofrequency fields for both ¹H and ¹³C frequencies in a 4 mm probe with a ¹H frequency of 750 MHz. The performance of the probe using windowless dipolar recoupling sequences is demonstrated on model compounds as well as membrane-embedded peptides.     

A 4-mm probe for (13)C CP/MAS NMR of solids at 21.15 T

The design of a broadband 4-mm magic-angle spinning (MAS) X-(1)H/(19)F double resonance probe for cross-polarization (CP)/MAS NMR studies at 21.15 T ((1)H at 900 MHz) is described. The high-frequency (1)H/(19)F channel employs a new and efficient transmission line tuning design. The first (13)C CP/MAS NMR spectra recorded at 21.15 T have been obtained with this probe and exhibit the best S/N per milligram sample of hexamethylbenzene achieved so far for a 4-mm rotor.