The interplay between the solid effect and the cross effect mechanisms in solid state 13C DNP at 95 GHz using trityl radicals

The C-13 solid state Dynamic Nuclear Polarization (DNP) mechanism using trityl radicals (OX63) as polarizers was investigated in the temperature range of 10-60 K. The solutions used were 6 M C-13 urea in DMSO/H2O (50% v/v) with 15 mM and 30 mM OX63. The measurements were carried out at similar to 3.5 T, which corresponds to Larmor frequencies of 95 GHz and 36 MHz for the OX63 and the C-13 nuclei, respectively. Measurements of the C-13 signal intensity as a function of the microwave (MW) irradiation frequency yielded C-13 DNP spectra with temperature dependent lineshapes for both samples. The maximum enhancement for the 30 mM sample was reached at 40 K, while that of the 15 mM sample at 20-30 K. Furthermore, the lineshapes observed showed that both the cross effect (CE) and the solid effect (SE) DNP mechanisms are active in this temperature range and that their relative contribution is temperature dependent. Simulations of the spectra with the relative contributions of the CE and SE mechanisms as a fit parameter revealed that for both samples the CE contribution decreases with decreasing temperature while the SE contribution increases. In addition, for the 15 mM sample the contributions of the two mechanisms are comparable from 20 K to 60 K while for the 30 mM the CE dominates in this range, as expected from the higher concentration. The steep decrease of the CE contribution towards low temperatures is however unexpected. The temperature dependence of the OX63 longitudinal relaxation, DNP buildup times and C-13 spin lattice relaxation times did not reveal any obvious correlation with the DNP temperature dependence. A similar behavior of the CE and SE mechanism was observed for H-1 DNP with the nitroxide radical TEMPOL as a polarizer. This suggests that this effect is a general phenomenon involving a temperature dependent competition between the CE and SE mechanisms, the source of which is, however, still unknown. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.