Fast broadband inversion by adiabatic pulses

Despite the advantages of compensation for resonance offset and B-1 inhomogeneity, adiabatic pulses are not yet in general use in high-resolution NMR, often because of the conception that these pulses require longer time or increased power to perform. We show that adiabatic pulses with tangential frequency sweeps and other frequency-modulation functions can be optimized to accomplish C-13 and H-1 broadband inversion using pulse lengths of 192 and 64 mu s, respectively, at B-1 strengths available with modern high-resolution probes. (C) 1998 Academic Press.