Frequency-swept adiabatic pulses for broadband solid-state MAS NMR

Structure Determination and Refinement of Paramagnetic Materials by Solid-State NMR

Paramagnetism in solid-state materials has long been considered an additional challenge for structural investigations by using solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (ssNMR). The strong interactions between unpaired electrons and the surrounding atomic nuclei, on the one hand, are complex to describe, and on the other hand can cause fast decaying signals and extremely broad resonances. However, significant progress has been made over the recent years in developing both theoretical models to understand and calculate the frequency shifts due to paramagnetism and also more sophisticated experimental protocols for obtaining high-resolution ssNMR spectra. While the field is continuously moving forward, to date, the combination of state-of-the-art numerical and experimental techniques enables us to obtain high-quality data for a variety of systems. This involves the determination of several ssNMR parameters that represent different contributions to the frequency shift in paramagnetic solids. These contributions encode structural information on the studied material on various length scales, ranging from crystal morphologies, to the mid- and long-range order, down to the local atomic bonding environment. In this perspective, the different ssNMR parameters characteristic for paramagnetic materials are discussed with a focus on their interpretation in terms of structure. This includes a summary of studies that have explored the information content of these ssNMR parameters, mostly to complement experimental data from other methods, e.g., X-ray diffraction. The presented overview aims to demonstrate how far ssNMR has hitherto been able to determine and refine the structures of materials and to discuss where it currently falls short of its full potential. We attempt to highlight how much further ssNMR can be pushed to determine and refine structure to deliver a comprehensive structural characterization of paramagnetic materials comparable to what is to date achieved by the combined effort of electron microscopy, diffraction, and spectroscopy.

Half-integer-spin quadrupolar nuclei in magic-angle spinning paramagnetic NMR: The case of NaMnO2

A combination of solid-state NMR methods for the extraction of ²³Na shift and quadrupolar parameters in the as-synthesized, structurally complex NaMnO₂ Na-ion cathode material, under magic-angle spinning (MAS) is presented. We show that the integration of the Magic-Angle Turning experiment with Rotor-Assisted Population transfer (RAPT) can be used both to identify shifts and to extract a range of magnitudes for their quadrupolar couplings. We also demonstrate the applicability of the two-dimensional one pulse (TOP) based double-sheared Satellite Transition Magic-Angle Spinning (TOP-STMAS) showing how it can yield a spectrum with separated shift and second-order quadrupolar anisotropies, which in turn can be used to analyze a quadrupolar lineshape free of anisotropic bulk magnetic susceptibility (ABMS) induced shift dispersion and determine both isotropic shift and quadrupolar products. Combining all these experiments, the shift and quadrupolar parameters for all observed Na environments were extracted and yielded excellent agreement with the density functional theory (DFT) based models that were reported in previous literature. We expect these methods to open the door for new possibilities for solid-state NMR to probe half-integer quadrupolar nuclei in paramagnetic materials and other systems exhibiting large shift dispersion.

Improved design of frequency-swept pulse sequences

Frequency-swept pulses are extensively used in magnetic resonance spectroscopic techniques for the robust manipulation of spins across wide ranges of offset frequencies in the presence of B₁ field variations. Nevertheless, designing pulse sequences consisting of multiple frequency-swept pulses can be challenging, as they often require specific timings and parameter tweaking. In the present work we discuss a simple and general approach for constructing such sequences. We present new and improved pulse sequences for applications including broadband B₁-tolerant CPMG (CHORUS-CPMG), broadband chirped excitation with suppression of homonuclear J-modulation (PROCHORUS), and the further compression of frequency-swept pulse sequences by superposition of pulses which reduces pulse sequence durations by 25-40%. All sequence design strategies are accompanied by mathematical presentations, experimental results, and supporting simulations.

Frequency-Swept Ultra-Wideline Magic-Angle Spinning NMR Spectroscopy

Recent years have witnessed the development of solid-state NMR techniques that allow the direct investigation of extremely wide inhomogeneously broadened resonance lines. To date, this typically involves the application of frequency sweeps as offered by wideband uniform rate smooth truncation (WURST) pulses. While the effects of such advanced irradiation schemes on static samples are well understood, the interference between the varying carrier frequency and the time-dependent evolution of the spin system under magic-angle spinning (MAS) conditions is more complex. Herein, we introduce the well-known WURST-Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill (WCPMG) pulse sequence for spinning samples. Using numerical spin-density matrix analysis, an ideal design based on fast frequency sweeps and high truncation of the incorporated WURST pulses is presented that enables uniform excitation/refocusing under MAS conditions with low-to-moderate radio-frequency power requirements. This permits the acquisition of ultra-wideline MAS NMR lines exceeding 500 kHz with chemical shift resolution in a single transmitter step.

Proton-detected solid-state NMR spectroscopy of spin-1/2 nuclei with large chemical shift anisotropy

Constant-time (CT) dipolar heteronuclear multiple quantum coherence (D-HMQC) has previously been demonstrated as a method for proton detection of high-resolution wideline NMR spectra of spin-1/2 nuclei with large chemical shift anisotropy (CSA). However, ¹H transverse relaxation and t₁-noise often reduce the sensitivity of D-HMQC experiments, preventing the theoretical gains in sensitivity provided by ¹H detection from being realized. Here we demonstrate a series of improved pulse sequences for ¹H detection of spin-1/2 nuclei under fast MAS, with ¹⁹⁵Pt SSNMR experiments on cisplatin as an example. First, a t₁-incrementation protocol for D-HMQC dubbed Arbitrary Indirect Dwell (AID) is demonstrated. AID allows the use of arbitrary, rotor asynchronous t₁-increments, but removes the constant time period from CT D-HMQC, resulting in improved sensitivity by reducing transverse relaxation losses. Next, we show that short high-power adiabatic pulses (SHAPs), which efficiently invert broad MAS sideband manifolds, can be effectively incorporated into ¹H detected symmetry-based resonance echo double resonance (S-REDOR) and t₁-noise eliminated (TONE) D-HMQC experiments. The S-REDOR experiments with SHAPs provide approximately double the dipolar dephasing, as compared to experiments with rectangular inversion pulses. We lastly show that sensitivity and resolution can be further enhanced with the use of swept excitation pulses as well as adiabatic magic angle turning (aMAT).