Perturbation of nuclear spin polarizations in solid state NMR of nitroxide-doped samples by magic-angle spinning without microwaves

We report solid state C-13 and H-1 nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments with magic-angle spinning (MAS) on frozen solutions containing nitroxide-based paramagnetic dopants that indicate significant perturbations of nuclear spin polarizations without microwave irradiation. At temperatures near 25 K, H-1 and cross-polarized C-13 NMR signals from N-15, C-13-labeled L-alanine in trinitroxide-doped glycerol/water are reduced by factors as large as six compared to signals from samples without nitroxide doping. Without MAS or at temperatures near 100 K, differences between signals with and without nitroxide doping are much smaller. We attribute most of the reduction of NMR signals under MAS near 25 K to nuclear spin depolarization through the cross-effect dynamic nuclear polarization mechanism, in which three-spin flips drive nuclear polarizations toward equilibrium with spin polarization differences between electron pairs. When T-1e is sufficiently long relative to the MAS rotation period, the distribution of electron spin polarization across the nitroxide electron paramagnetic resonance lineshape can be very different from the corresponding distribution in a static sample at thermal equilibrium, leading to the observed effects. We describe three-spin and 3000-spin calculations that qualitatively reproduce the experimental observations.