Compensating for variation in 1JCH coupling constants in HSQC spectra acquired on small organic molecules

The HSQC sequence provides a sensitive way of determining the ¹³C chemical shift of protonated carbons. It uses INEPT elements for magnetization transfer, which can only be optimized for one value of ¹J_CH, but small organic molecules contain a wide range of ¹J_CH values. One popular method of compensating for ¹J_CH variation is to incorporate adiabatic pulses into the INEPT elements. This article shows that this method fails for a significant subset of functional groups. It also shows that the effects of this failure can be reduced by avoiding refocusing delays and by using a J‐compensated excitation element. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.