Sensitivity analysis of magic angle spinning dynamic nuclear polarization below 6 K

Dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) improves signal-to-noise in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Signal-to-noise in NMR can be further improved with cryogenic sample cooling. Whereas MAS DNP is commonly performed between 25 and 110 K, sample temperatures below 6 K lead to further improvements in sensitivity. Here, we demonstrate that solid effect MAS DNP experiments at 6 K, using trityl, yield 3.2× more sensitivity compared to 90 K. Trityl with solid effect DNP at 6 K yields substantially more signal to noise than biradicals and cross effect DNP. We also characterize cross effect DNP with AMUPol and TEMTriPol-1 biradicals for DNP magic angle spinning at temperatures below 6 K and 7 Tesla. DNP enhancements determined from microwave on/off intensities are 253 from AMUPol and 49 from TEMTriPol-1. The higher thermal Boltzmann polarization at 6 K compared to 298 K, combined with these enhancements, should result in 10,000× signal gain for AMUPol and 2000× gain for TEMTriPol-1. However, we show that AMUPol reduces signal in the absence of microwaves by 90% compared to 41% by TEMTriPol-1 at 7 Tesla as the result of depolarization and other detrimental paramagnetic effects. AMUPol still yields the highest signal-to-noise improvement per unit time between the cross effect radicals due to faster polarization buildup (T_1DNP = 4.3 s and 36 s for AMUPol and TEMTriPol-1, respectively). Overall, AMUPol results in 2.5× better sensitivity compared to TEMTriPol-1 in MAS DNP experiments performed below 6 K at 7 T. Trityl provides 6.0× more sensitivity than TEMTriPol-1 and 1.9× more than AMUPol at 6 K, thus yielding the greatest signal-to-noise per unit time among all three radicals. A DNP enhancement profile of TEMTriPol-1 recorded with a frequency-tunable custom-built gyrotron oscillator operating at 198 GHz is also included. It is determined that at 7 T below 6 K a microwave power level of 0.6 W incident on the sample is sufficient to saturate the cross effect mechanism using TEMTriPol-1, yet increasing the power level up to 5 W results in higher improvements in DNP sensitivity with AMUPol. These results indicate MAS DNP below 6 K will play a prominent role in ultra-sensitive NMR spectroscopy in the future.