Solid-state Hadamard NMR spectroscopy: Simultaneous measurements of multiple selective homonuclear scalar couplings

Abstract

Unambiguous measurement of homonuclear scalar couplings (J) in multi-spin scalar network systems is not straightforward. Further, the direct measurement of J-couplings is obscured in solid-state samples due to the dipolar and chemical shift anisotropy (CSA)-dominated line broadening, even under the magic angle spinning (MAS). We present a new multiple frequency selective spin-echo method based on Hadamard matrix encoding, for simultaneous measurement of multiple homonuclear scalar couplings (J) in the solid-state. In contrast to the Hadamard encoded selective excitation schemes known for the solution-state, herein the selectivity is achieved during refocusing period. The Hadamard encoded refocusing scheme concurrently allows to create the spin–spin commutation property between number of spin-pairs of choice in uniformly labelled molecules, which, therefore avoids (1) the repetition of the double selective refocusing experiments for each spin-pair and (2) the synthesis of expensive selective labelled molecules. The experimental scheme is exemplified for determining 1JCC and 3JCC values in 13C6l-Histidine.HCl molecule, which are found to be in excellent agreement with those measured in conventional double frequency selective refocusing mode as well as in the solution-state. This method can be simply extended to 2D/3D pulse schemes and be applied to small bio-molecular solids.