Indirect detection of 10B (I = 3) overtone NMR at very fast magic angle spinning

Abstract

The application of overtone nuclear magnetic resonance (OT NMR) to symmetric spin transitions of integer quadrupolar nuclei is of considerable interest since this transition is immune to the first-order quadrupolar interaction, thus resulting in narrow NMR lines. Owing to its roles in nature and its high natural abundance, 14N (I = 1) OT NMR has been explored, in which the indirect and/or direct acquisitions of 14N OT were experimentally demonstrated. However, other than 14N nucleus, no OT NMR observation of other integer quadrupolar nuclei has been reported in the literature. In this work, we extend the application of OT NMR to another integer quadrupolar nucleus, namely 10B (I = 3). However, this is not straightforward owing to the unfavorable characteristics of 10B isotope. Here, for the first time, we present the selective acquisition of 10B central (−1 ↔ +1) OT NMR via detection of 1H nuclei on perborate monohydrate sample. Numerical calculations are in a good agreement with the experimental results. Both show that the optimal sensitivity is achieved when the carrier frequency is applied at the second OT spinning sideband, i.e. an offset of twice of the spinning frequency from the center band.