Convection-compensating diffusion experiments with phase-sensitive double-quantum filtering

Abstract

We present a design scheme for phase-sensitive, convection-compensating diffusion experiments with gradient-selected homonuclear double-quantum filtering. The scheme consists of three blocks: a 1/2 J evolution period during which antiphase single-quantum coherences are created; a period of double-quantum evolution; and another 1/2 J period, during which antiphase single-quantum coherences are converted back into an in-phase state. A single coherence transfer pathway is selected using an asymmetric set of gradient pulses, and both diffusion sensitization and convection compensation are built into the gradient coherence transfer pathway selection. Double-quantum filtering can be used either for solvent suppression or spectral editing, and we demonstrate examples of both applications. The new experiment performs well in the absence of a field-frequency lock and does not require magnitude Fourier transformation. The proposed scheme may offer advantages in diffusion measurements of spectrally crowded systems, particularly small molecules solubilized in colloidal solutions or bound to macromolecules.