t1-noise elimination by continuous chemical shift anisotropy refocusing

Abstract

Due to their high gyromagnetic ratio, there is considerable interest in measuring distances and correlations involving protons, but such measurements are compounded by the simultaneous recoupling of chemical shift anisotropy (CSA). This secondary recoupling adds additional modulations to the signal intensities that ultimately lead to t₁-noise and signal decay. Recently, Venkatesh et al. demonstrated that the addition of CSA refocusing periods during ¹H-X dipolar recoupling led to sequences with far higher stability and performance. Herein, we describe a related effort and develop a symmetry-based recoupling sequence that continually refocuses the ¹H CSA. This sequence shows superior performance to the regular and t₁-noise eliminated D-HMQC sequences in the case of spin-1/2 nuclei and comparable performance to the later for half-integer quadrupoles.