Heteronuclear and Homonuclear Finite Pulse Radio Frequency Driven Recoupling

Abstract. Homonuclear finite-pulse radio frequency driven recoupling (fp-RFDR) has been broadly used in multi-dimensional magic-angle spinning (MAS) solid-state NMR experiments over the past 20 years. The theoretical and the simulated descriptions of this method were presented during that time, resulting in an understanding of the influence of chemical shift offset, finite pulse effects, and dipolar truncation. Here we present an operator analysis of both heteronuclear and homonuclear fp-RFDR. By numerical simulation, we show which operators are involved in the longitudinal exchange for both heteronuclear and the well-known homonuclear sequences. This results in a better understanding of the influence of phase cycling of the fp-RFDR pulses, which is typically a variant of XY cycling. We investigate the heteronuclear and homonuclear fp-RFDR signals and evolution of the operators through the fp-RFDR block. We show the convergence of the evolutions of the heteronuclear and homonuclear fp-RFDR signals at even numbers of rotor periods and completely different evolution between them. We demonstrate heteronuclear ¹H- ¹³C and ¹H-¹⁵N fp-RFDR magnetization transfer using a microcrystalline SH3 sample at 100 kHz MAS.