No Arabic abstract
$^{31}$P NMR and MRI are commonly used to study organophosphates that are central to cellular energy metabolism. In some molecules of interest, such as adenosine diphosphate (ADP) and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD), pairs of coupled $^{31}$P nuclei in the diphosphate moiety should enable the creation of nuclear spin singlet states, which may be long-lived and can be selectively detected via quantum filters. Here, we show that $^{31}$P singlet states can be created on ADP and NAD, but their lifetimes are shorter than T$_{1}$ and are strongly sensitive to pH. Nevertheless, the singlet states were used with a quantum filter to successfully isolate the $^{31}$P NMR spectra of those molecules from the adenosine triphosphate (ATP) background signal.
We measure the lifetime of long-lived nuclear spin singlet states as a function of the strength of the RF spin-locking field and present a simple theoretical model that agrees well with our measurements, including the low-RF-power regime. We also measure the lifetime of a long-lived coherence between singlet and triplet states that does not require a spin-locking field for preservation. Our results indicate that for many molecules, singlet states can be created using weak RF spin-locking fields: more than two orders of magnitude lower RF power than in previous studies. Our findings suggest that in many biomolecules, singlets and related states with enhanced lifetimes might be achievable in vivo with safe levels of RF power.
We introduce a broadly applicable technique to create nuclear spin singlet states in organic molecules and other many-atom systems. We employ a novel pulse sequence to produce a spin-lock induced crossing (SLIC) of the spin singlet and triplet energy levels, which enables triplet/singlet polarization transfer and singlet state preparation. We demonstrate the utility of the SLIC method by producing a long-lived nuclear spin singlet state on two strongly-coupled proton pairs in the tripeptide molecule phenylalanine-glycine-glycine dissolved in D2O, and by using SLIC to measure the J-couplings, chemical shift differences, and singlet lifetimes of the proton pairs. We show that SLIC is more efficient at creating nearly-equivalent nuclear spin singlet states than previous pulse sequence techniques, especially when triplet/singlet polarization transfer occurs on the same timescale as spin-lattice relaxation.
Atomistic molecular dynamics simulations are used to investigate $^1$H NMR $T_1$ relaxation of water from paramagnetic Gd$^{3+}$ ions in solution at 25$^{circ}$C. Simulations of the $T_1$ relaxivity dispersion function $r_1$ computed from the Gd$^{3+}$--$^1$H dipole--dipole autocorrelation function agree within $simeq 8$% of measurements in the range $f_0 simeq $ 5 $leftrightarrow$ 500 MHz, without any adjustable parameters in the interpretation of the simulations, and without any relaxation models. The simulation results are discussed in the context of the Solomon-Bloembergen-Morgan inner-sphere relaxation model, and the Hwang-Freed outer-sphere relaxation model. Below $f_0 lesssim $ 5 MHz, the simulation overestimates $r_1$ compared to measurements, which is used to estimate the zero-field electron-spin relaxation time. The simulations show potential for predicting $r_1$ at high frequencies in chelated Gd$^{3+}$ contrast-agents used for clinical MRI.
Short coherence times present a primary obstacle in quantum computing and sensing applications. In atomic systems, clock transitions (CTs), formed from avoided crossings in an applied Zeeman field, can substantially increase coherence times. We show how CTs can dampen intrinsic and extrinsic sources of quantum noise in molecules. Conical intersections between two periodic potentials form CTs in electron paramagnetic resonance experiments of the spin-polarized singlet fission photoproduct. We report on a pair of CTs for a two-chromophore molecule in terms of the Zeeman field strength, molecular orientation relative to the field, and molecular geometry.
The understanding of weak measurements and interaction-free measurements has greatly expanded the conceptual and experimental toolbox to explore the quantum world. Here we demonstrate single-shot variable-strength weak measurements of the electron and the nuclear spin states of a single $^{31}$P donor in silicon. We first show how the partial collapse of the nuclear spin due to measurement can be used to coherently rotate the spin to a desired pure state. We explicitly demonstrate that phase coherence is preserved throughout multiple sequential single-shot weak measurements, and that the partial state collapse can be reversed. Second, we use the relation between measurement strength and perturbation of the nuclear state as a physical meter to extract the tunneling rates between the $^{31}$P donor and a nearby electron reservoir from data, conditioned on observing no tunneling events. Our experiments open avenues to measurement-based state preparation, steering and feedback protocols for spin systems in the solid state, and highlight the fundamental connection between information gain and state modification in quantum mechanics.