On the role of experimental imperfections in constructing 1H spin diffusion NMR plots for domain size measurements

We discuss the precision of 1D chemical-shift-based ¹H spin diffusion NMR experiments as well as straightforward experimental protocols for reducing errors. The ¹H spin diffusion NMR experiments described herein are useful for samples that contain components with significant spectral overlap in the ¹H NMR spectrum and also for samples of small mass (<1 mg). We show that even in samples that display little spectral contrast, domain sizes can be determined to a relatively high degree of certainty if common experimental variability is accounted for and known. In particular, one should (1) measure flip angles to high precision (≈±1° flip angle), (2) establish a metric for phase transients to ensure their repeatability, (3) establish a reliable spectral deconvolution procedure to ascertain the deconvolved spectra of the neat components in the composite or blend spin diffusion spectrum, and (4) when possible, perform 1D chemical-shift-based ¹H spin diffusion experiments with zero total integral to partially correct for errors and uncertainties if these requirements cannot fully be implemented. We show that minimizing the degree of phase transients is not a requirement for reliable domain size measurement, but their repeatability is essential, as is knowing their contribution to the spectral offset (i.e. the J₁ coefficient). When performing experiments with zero total integral in the spin diffusion NMR spectrum with carefully measured flip angles and known phase transient effects, the largest contribution to error arises from an uncertainty in the component lineshapes which can be as high as 7%. This uncertainty can be reduced considerably if the component lineshapes deconvolved from the composite or blend spin diffusion spectra adequately match previously acquired pure component spectra.     

Coherent NMR Stark spectroscopy

We demonstrate phase-coherent Stark effects from a radiofrequency E field at twice the NMR frequency (2ω(0)) of (69)Ga in GaAs. The 2ω(0) phase (?(E)) selects component responses from the nuclear quadrupole Hamiltonian (H(Q)). This is possible by synchronizing few-μs 2ω(0) pulses with an NMR line-narrowing sequence, which averages the Stark interaction to dominate spectra on a background with 10(3)× enhanced resolution. Spectra vs ?(E) reveal relative sizes of tensorial factors in H(Q). Comparative modeling and numerical simulations evaluate spectral features unexplained by average Hamiltonian theory, and suggest improvements for quantitative calibration of individual response components. Application of this approach to bulk samples is of value to define Stark responses that may later be used to interrogate the internal electrostatics of structured samples.     

129Xe and131Xe NMR of xenon on silica surfaces at 77 K

Little is known about¹²⁹Xe NMR spectral features and spin-lattice relaxation behavior, and the dynamics of xenon atoms, for xenon adsorbed on solid surfaces at cryogenic temperatures (≤77 K), where exchange with gas-phase atoms is not a significant complication. We report¹²⁹Xe NMR experiments at 9,4 T that provide such information for xenon adsorbed onto the hydroxylated surface of a number of microporous silica samples at 77 K. A convenient design for these cryogenic experiments is described. Dynamics of surface-adsorbed xenon atoms on the time scale of seconds can be observed by¹²⁹Xe NMR hole-burning experiments; much slower dynamics occurring over hours and days are evidenced from changes with time of the¹²⁹Xe NMR chemical shifts. The peak maxima occur in the region ca. 180–316 ppm, considerably downfield of¹²⁹Xe shifts previously reported on surfaces at higher temperatures, and closer to the shift of xenon bulk solid (316.4±1 ppm). The¹²⁹Xe spin-lattice relaxation timesT ₁ range over five orders of magnitude; possible explanations for both nonexponential relaxation behavior and extremely shortT ₁ values (35 ms) are discussed. Preliminary¹³¹Xe and¹H NMR results are presented, as well as a method for greatly increasing the sensitivity of¹²⁹Xe NMR detection at low temperatures by using closely-spaced trains of rf pulses.     

Application de l'effet photoelectrique inverse a la photometrie

We derive a relation between the direct and converse photo-electric effects which takes into account the geometrical features of possible experiments. We describe a device in which both effects acting successively give an electronic signal proportional to the square of the photo-electric yield of the investigated material. Absolute photometric calibrations in the spectral 20–1000 eV may be achieved by this method.     

Negative impact of noise on the principal component analysis of NMR data

Principal component analysis (PCA) is routinely applied to the study of NMR based metabolomic data. PCA is used to simplify the examination of complex metabolite mixtures obtained from biological samples that may be composed of hundreds or thousands of chemical components. PCA is primarily used to identify relative changes in the concentration of metabolites to identify trends or characteristics within the NMR data that permits discrimination between various samples that differ in their source or treatment. A common concern with PCA of NMR data is the potential over emphasis of small changes in high concentration metabolites that would over-shadow significant and large changes in low-concentration components that may lead to a skewed or irrelevant clustering of the NMR data. We have identified an additional concern, very small and random fluctuations within the noise of the NMR spectrum can also result in large and irrelevant variations in the PCA clustering. Alleviation of this problem is obtained by simply excluding the noise region from the PCA by a judicious choice of a threshold above the spectral noise.     

Two-dimensional spectral shearing interferometry for few-cycle pulse characterization

We present a new method for measuring the spectral phase of ultrashort pulses that utilizes spectral shearing interferometry with zero delay. Unlike conventional spectral phase interferometry for direct electric-field reconstruction, which encodes phase as a sensitively calibrated fringe in the spectral domain, two-dimensional spectral shearing interferometry robustly encodes phase along a second dimension. This greatly reduces demands on the spectrometer and allows for complex phase spectra to be measured over extremely large bandwidths, potentially exceeding 1.5 octaves.     

Double-quantum filtered 1H MAS NMR spectra

It is shown that straightforward double-quantum filtered (1)H MAS NMR experiments yield spectral lineshapes that permit to estimate the minimum number of (1)H spins in a cluster. The approach may offer an alternative to multiple-quantum experiments for the characterisation of (1)H spin clusters of moderate size. The duration of the double-quantum excitation period has to be chosen suitably, it is necessary to find a practical compromise between optimum double-quantum filtration efficiency and optimum information content of the spectral lineshapes. Some (1)H MAS NMR experiments on partially deuterated maleic acid are reported as well as numerical simulations.     

Post-processing of individual signals for de-noising

In this work, we examine the fluctuation of the intensity and the phase of an NMR signal during repetition of experiments and investigate possibilities of using these information to judge suspicious peaks, whose true colors may be noises or genuine signals. We firstly analyze the intensity and the phase of an NMR signal separately, and show that for the accumulated spectral profile the contribution of the intensity is less than that of the phase. Secondly we show that we can de-noise a noisy spectrum by using the standard deviation of phase at each spectral point. We then compare the de-noising effect of the present approach and that of the phase-covariance method proposed recently, which is an alternative method of appreciating phase distribution. Finally, effects of the dispersion component are discussed.     

Coherent measurement of short laser pulses based on spectral interferometry resolved in time

We propose a new method for measuring the phase and the amplitude of a short laser pulse that is based on shearing interferometry in the spectral domain combined with time gating. The method has several features in common with spectral interferometry for direct electric-field reconstruction, in particular, fast and direct reconstruction of the phase. Accurate measurement of the phase added to an 80-fs pulse by a block of F4 glass demonstrates the technique.     

High-resolution absorptive intermolecular multiple-quantum coherence NMR spectroscopy under inhomogeneous fields

Intermolecular multiple-quantum coherence (iMQC) is capable of improving NMR spectral resolution using a 2D shearing manipulation method. A pulse sequence termed CT-iDH, which combines intermolecular double-quantum filter (iDQF) with a modified constant-time (CT) scheme, is designed to achieve fast acquisition of high-resolution intermolecular zero-quantum coherences (iZQCs) and intermolecular double-quantum coherences (iDQCs) spectra without strong coupling artifacts. Furthermore, double-absorption lineshapes are first realized in 2D intermolecular multi-quantum coherences (iMQCs) spectra under inhomogeneous fields through a combination of iZQC and iDQC signals to double the resolution without loss of sensitivity. Theoretically the spectral linewidth can be further reduced by half compared to original iMQC high-resolution spectra. Several experiments were performed to test the feasibility of the new method and the improvements are evaluated quantitatively. The study suggests potential applications for in vivo spectroscopy.     

核磁共振波谱在肿瘤诊疗中的应用研究进展

在介绍肿瘤样品代谢物的核磁共振波谱技术的研究方法的基础上,从离体组织和活体组织两个方面综述核磁共振波谱(NMR)在诊断肿瘤方面的应用进展,分析了它在肿瘤诊疗中的应用前景。在离体组织方面,人们通过1H和31P-NMR谱观测病人的体液样品、培养的细胞、切除的组织等来研究脂质、磷脂等代谢物的分布,观测肿瘤与对照组织之间的差别。其中利用组织提取物的方法能够得到分辨率较高的图谱,非常适合应用于肿瘤诊断和治疗方法的研究。高分辨魔角旋转(HR-MAS)的方法在肿瘤诊断研究方面展现出新的生命力,利用高分辨魔角旋转技术可以直接得到组织细胞中很多分子水平的代谢物结构和组成信息,因此它在癌症的早期诊断中具有很好的前景。在活体核磁共振波谱诊断肿瘤方面,主要应用1H和31P核磁共振波谱,结合MRI为非侵入性肿瘤分析提供了一种临床可用的方法。MRI与MRS技术的结合将使核磁共振波谱在医学领域有更大的应用空间。     

J-modulation effects in DOSY experiments and their suppression: the Oneshot45 experiment

Diffusion-ordered spectroscopy (DOSY) is a powerful NMR method for identifying compounds in mixtures. DOSY experiments are very demanding of spectral quality; even small deviations from expected behaviour in NMR signals can cause significant distortions in the diffusion domain. This is a particular problem when signals overlap, so it is very important to be able to acquire clean data with as little overlap as possible. DOSY experiments all suffer to a greater or lesser extent from multiplet phase distortions caused by J-modulation, requiring a trade-off between such distortions and gradient pulse width. Multiplet distortions increase spectral overlap and may cause unexpected and misleading apparent diffusion coefficients in DOSY spectra. These effects are described here and a simple and effective remedy, the addition of a 45° purging pulse immediately before the onset of acquisition to remove the unwanted anti-phase terms, is demonstrated. As well as affording significantly cleaner results, the new method allows much longer diffusion-encoding pulses to be used without problems from J-modulation, and hence greatly increases the range of molecular sizes that can be studied for coupled spin systems. The sensitivity loss is negligible and the added phase cycling is modest. The new method is illustrated for a widely-used general purpose DOSY pulse sequence, Oneshot.     

低温诱导桑蚕体内腺体相行为的高分辨^13C固体核磁共振研究

为什么蚕在常温常压水溶液条件下即能纺出力学性能优异的蚕丝纤维, 一直是科学家们感兴趣的问题. 在过去的几十年, 人们曾用多种表征手段, 如双折射、扫描电镜、原子力显微镜和电子散射等, 在界观尺度下对蚕在吐丝过程中腺体的相行为进行研究. 发现腺体在靠近吐丝口时呈液晶态, 并认为这是导致蚕丝力学性能的重要因素. 本文则在分子水平尺度下利用核磁共振方法, 对五龄蚕活体在常温和6 ℃下存储数天后解剖的腺体进行研究. 经对化学位移及其线型的各向异性分析发现, 当将体内腺体沿吐丝方向分为3部, 即后部、中部及靠近吐丝口的前部时, 常温下, 腺体后部和中后部分子呈无规线团, 而腺体中中部、中前部和前部分子呈液晶态. 6 ℃时, 中后部分子亦呈液晶态, 前部分子排列则各向异性更大, 说明更为有序. 这种液晶态呈分形结构, 在小于纳米尺度下为无规线团, 大于纳米尺度呈有序排列. 这表明, 降温过程可使呈无规线团的丝素蛋白分子转变为液晶态, 其效果如同蚕在吐丝过程中对其腺体施加的剪切应力. 该结果对于人们探索人工合成高性能类丝素纤维的纺丝工艺和条件将有启发和指导作用.     

小波变换重建超短脉冲光谱相位的误差分析

分析了噪声对小波变换重建超短脉冲光谱相位的影响. 在理想情况和附加噪声、倍增噪声， 以及干涉条纹采样量化干扰的情况下，分析了小波变换对几种光谱相位的重建精度. 结果显 示，在理想情况和噪声干扰的情况下，小波变换的相位重建精度都在003rad范围以内. 这 说明小波变换是一种精确可信的光谱相位重建方法，具有很强的抗噪声干扰能力. 另外，将 小波变换的轨迹图类比SHG FROG的轨迹图，可以直接定性判断脉冲的啁啾特征. 关键词： 超短脉冲 相位重建 小波变换 噪声     

High-Temperature Dynamic Nuclear Polarization Enhanced Magic-Angle-Spinning NMR

Dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) transfers electron spin-polarization to nuclear spins in close proximity, increasing sensitivity by two-to-three orders of magnitude. This enables nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments on samples with low concentrations of analyte. The requirement of using cryogenic temperatures in DNP-enhanced solid-state NMR (ssNMR) experiments may impair the resolution and hence limit its broad application to biological systems. In this work, we introduce a “High-Temperature DNP” approach, which aims at increasing spectral resolution by performing experiments at temperatures of around 180?K instead of?~100?K. By utilizing the extraordinary enhancements obtained on deuterated proteins, still sufficiently large DNP enhancements of 11–18 are obtained for proton and carbon, respectively. We recorded high sensitivity 2D ¹³C–¹³C spectra in?~9?min with higher resolution than at 100?K, which has similar resolution to the one obtained at room temperature for some favorable residues.     

Sensitivity enhanced recoupling experiments in solid-state NMR by gamma preparation

In this paper, we introduce a class of dipolar recoupling experiments under magic angle spinning (MAS), which use gamma dependent antiphase polarization during the t1 evolution period. We show that this helps us to design dipolar recoupling experiments that transfer both components of the transverse magnetization of spin S to a coupled spin I in the mixing step of a 2D NMR experiment. We show that it is possible to design such transfer schemes and make them insensitive to the orientation dependency of the couplings in powders. This helps us to develop sensitivity enhanced 2D NMR experiments of powder samples under MAS.     

Tunneling spectra of layered strongly correlated d-wave superconductors

Tunneling conductance experiments on cuprate superconductors exhibit a large diversity of spectra that appear in different nanosized regions of inhomogeneous samples. In this Letter, we use a mean-field approach to the tt't'J model in order to address the features in these spectra that deviate from the BCS paradigm, namely, the bias sign asymmetry at high bias, the generic lack of evidence for the van Hove singularity, and the absence of coherence peaks at low dopings. We conclude that these features can be reproduced in homogeneous layered d-wave superconductors solely due to a proximate Mott insulating transition. We also establish the connection between the above tunneling spectral features and the strong renormalization of the electron dispersion around (0, pi) and (pi, 0) and the momentum space anisotropy of electronic states observed in angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy experiments.     

Imaged deconvolution: a method for extracting high-resolution NMR spectra from inhomogeneous fields

We present a novel method for obtaining high resolution NMR spectra in the presence of grossly inhomogeneous magnetic fields, such as those encountered in one-sided access NMR. Our method combines the well-known principle of reference deconvolution with NMR imaging in order to resolve spectral features with frequency resolution orders of magnitude smaller than the prevailing line-broadening due to field inhomogeneity. We demonstrate that, in cases of inhomogeneous field line-broadening more than an order of magnitude larger than the spectral features to be resolved, rather than performing reference deconvolution on the sample as a whole, it is more favourable in terms of SNR to divide the target region of a sample into smaller sub-regions, by means of chemical shift imaging, and then to perform reference deconvolution on the individual sub-region spectra, finally summing the results In this way, significant resolution enhancements can be obtained in the presence of severe magnetic field inhomogeneity without an unacceptable loss in SNR.     

低温诱导桑蚕体内腺体相行为的高分辨13C固体核磁共振研究

为什么蚕在常温常压水溶液条件下即能纺出力学性能优异的蚕丝纤维,一直是科学家们感兴趣的问题. 在过去的几十年,人们曾用多种表征手段,如双折射、扫描电镜、原子力显微镜和电子散射等,在界观尺度下对蚕在吐丝过程中腺体的相行为进行研究. 发现腺体在靠近吐丝口时呈液晶态,并认为这是导致蚕丝力学性能的重要因素. 本文则在分子水平尺度下利用核磁共振方法, 对五龄蚕活体在常温和6 ℃下存储数天后解剖的腺体进行研究. 经对化学位移及其线型的各向异性分析发现,当将体内腺体沿吐丝方向分为3部,即后部、中部及靠近吐丝口的前部时,常温下,腺体后部和中后部分子呈无规线团,而腺体中中部、中前部和前部分子呈液晶态. 6 ℃时, 中后部分子亦呈液晶态,前部分子排列则各向异性更大,说明更为有序. 这种液晶态呈分形结构,在小于纳米尺度下为无规线团,大于纳米尺度呈有序排列. 这表明,降温过程可使呈无规线团的丝素蛋白分子转变为液晶态,其效果如同蚕在吐丝过程中对其腺体施加的剪切应力. 该结果对于人们探索人工合成高性能类丝素纤维的纺丝工艺和条件将有启发和指导作用.      

A model for domain and domain wall NMR signals in magnetic materials

Spin echo NMR signals in magnetic materials (simple metals, alloys or intermetallic compounds) generally result from mixed contributions of distinct magnetic regions of the sample, the magnetic domains and the domain walls. The amplitude of the signal is proportional to the so-called enhancement factor which in most of the cases greatly differs in these two regions, depending upon the wall mobility, the magnetic anisotropy, etc. The experimental access to domain and domain walls is possible, in principle, by a careful control of the RF power applied to the sample. In this paper a simple superposition model is proposed which includes both contributions to the NMR signal. We calculate the amplitude of the spin echo in magnetic powder samples and compare it with experimental situations where it has been possible to separate different contributions to the signal. This has been done in some RCo₂ magnetic rare-earth intermetallic compounds by analyzing the spectral line widths and the curve of the spin echo amplitude versus the applied RF field. Despite its simplicity, the present model allows the understanding of the main features of the NMR spectra and the dependence of the echo amplitude with the RF power in these compounds.