Intermolecular multiple-quantum coherence transfer echoes and multiple echoes in nuclear magnetic resonance

In recent years evidence was presented that two radio frequency pulses in combination with suitably matched field gradient pulses produce cross peaks in two-dimensional NMR spectroscopy that reveal all the features of multiple-quantum/single-quantum coherence transfer signals. This experiment was termed CRAZED by Warren et al. Quite amazingly, identical signals were predicted on a purely classical basis. Thus the intriguing question arises whether this means that a classical analog to multiple-quantum coherences exists. In this study we show that this is clearly not the case. Coherence pathways of a purely single-quantum basis are excited anyway and lead independently to superimposed identical signals in parallel. Moreover, the observation of CRAZED signals per se neither disproves the adequacy of the high-temperature approximation, which was questioned in this context, nor proves a strong influence of intermolecular multiple-quantum coherences. However, the indispensable prerequisite for the description of the manifold CRAZED phenomena is that long-range dipolar interactions are taken into account either explicitly or in the continuous-limit form. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-9606(99)01008-9].