Issue 27, 2016

Coherent pump pulses in Double Electron Electron Resonance spectroscopy

Abstract

The recent introduction of shaped pulses to Double Electron Electron Resonance (DEER) spectroscopy has led to significant enhancements in sensitivity through increased excitation bandwidths and improved control over spin dynamics. The application of DEER has so far relied on the presence of an incoherent pump channel to average out most undesired coherent effects of the pump pulse(s) on the observer spins. However, in fully coherent EPR spectrometers that are increasingly used to generate shaped pulses, the presence of coherent pump pulses means that these effects need to be explicitly considered. In this paper, we examine the effects of coherent rectangular and sech/tanh pump pulses in DEER experiments with up to three pump pulses. We show that, even in the absence of significant overlap of the observer and pump pulse excitation bandwidths, coherence transfer pathways involving both types of pulses generate spin echoes of considerable intensity. These echoes introduce artefacts, which, if not identified and removed, can easily lead to misinterpretation. We demonstrate that the observed echoes can be quantitatively modelled using a simple spin quantum dynamics approach that includes instrumental transfer functions. Based on an analysis of the echo crossing artefacts, we propose efficient phase cycling schemes for their suppression. This enables the use of advanced DEER experiments, characterized by high sensitivity and increased accuracy for long-distance measurements, on novel fully coherent EPR spectrometers.

Graphical abstract: Coherent pump pulses in Double Electron Electron Resonance spectroscopy

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
24 May 2016
Accepted
15 Jun 2016
First published
16 Jun 2016
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2016,18, 18470-18485

Author version available

Coherent pump pulses in Double Electron Electron Resonance spectroscopy

C. E. Tait and S. Stoll, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2016, 18, 18470 DOI: 10.1039/C6CP03555H

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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