Spectral broadenings

Overview

EPR spectra do not consist of a discrete set of infinitely sharp lines. Lines are broadened by dynamic effects (relaxation, tumbling, chemical exchange) or static effects (orientational disorder, unresolved hyperfine splittings, distributions in magnetic properties such as g, A, and D values).

EasySpin takes orientational disorder into account explicitly for solid-state spectra. It allows you to include some forms of additional broadening in most spectral simulations (solid-state cw EPR with pepper, liquid EPR with garlic, ENDOR with salt). In addition, any static broadening model can be implemented using explicit averaging.

The two types of broadening models built into EasySpin are:

The broadenings are given in fields of the spin system structure, which contains the spin system and all associated spin Hamiltonian parameters. Not all types of broadenings are supported by all simulation functions.

Broadenings are treated differently in the simulation of slow-motion cw EPR spectra using chili. See the documentation of chili.

All broadenings are understood to be FWHM (full width at half height) or PP (peak-to-peak), independent of the simulation function, the line shape or the detection harmonic. For the conversion to and from peak-to-peak line widths, see the reference page on line shapes.

Use only broadenings of one type at a time.

Isotropic convolutional broadenings

This type of broadening is applied by convolving a stick spectrum with a single lineshape. Therefore, it applies the same line width and line shape to each transition and orientation.

Isotropic convolutional broadening should only be used for S=1/2 systems with very small g anisotropy, and for S>1/2 systems with small zero-field splittings. For systems with substantial g anisotropy, or higher electron spin with substantial zero-field splitting, it will lead to incorrect results. The reason is that in those cases, distributions in g and D are almost always dominant, and a simple comvolutional broadening is inappropriate.

The following fields in the spin system structure specify convolutional broadenings.

lwpp
Line width for isotropic broadening (PP, peak-to-peak), used for convolution of a field-swept or frequency-swept liquid or solid-state cw EPR spectrum. Peak-to-peak refers to the horizontal distance between the maximum and the minimum of a first-derivative lineshape.

For field-swept spectra, the unit of lwpp is mT. For frequency-swept spectra, the unit is MHz.

Sys.lwpp = 10;       % Gaussian broadening
Sys.lwpp = [0 12];   % Lorentzian broadening
Sys.lwpp = [10 12];  % Voigtian broadening (Gaussian + Lorentzian)

For conversion between FWHM and PP line widths, see the reference page on line shapes.

lw
Same as lwpp, except that the numbers are assumed to indicate the full width at half maximum (FWHM) instead of the peak-to-peak (PP) width. For conversion between FWHM and PP line widths, see the reference page on line shapes.
lwEndor
Line width (FWHM) for ENDOR broadening. Usage is the same as lw. For lwEndor, no peak-to-peak analogue is available. See the page on line shapes for conversion formulas.
Anisotropic broadenings

To model anisotropic broadenings in solid-state cw EPR spectra, use fields depending on the physical origin of the broadening:

More than one of these broadenings can be specified simultaneously. The total broadening for a given orientation is the combination of all individual broadenings.

The broadenings resulting from the various strains are computed in an approximate way. For example, for gStrain, the derivative with respect to g of the resonance field of a given transition is computed, and then the magnitude of this derivative is multiplied by the value from gStrain to give the actual line width. A Gaussian with this line width is then added to the spectrum. A similar procedure is used for all other strains.

This approximation, which corresponds to the first term in a Taylor expansion or to first-order perturbation theory, is valid only as long as the strain distribution width is much smaller than the parameter itself, e.g. a gStrain of 0.02 for a g of 2. If the distributions is wider, an explicit loop (see below) should be used, see below.

HStrain
[FWHM_x FWHM_y FWHM_z]
Anisotropic residual line width (full width at half height, FWHM), in MHz, describing broadening due to unresolved hyperfine couplings or other transition-independent effects. The three components are the Gaussian line widths in the x, y and z direction of the molecular frame.
Sys.HStrain = [10 10 10];        % 10 MHz Gaussian FWHM broadening in all directions
Sys.HStrain = [10 10 50];        % broadening along the molecular z axis larger than along x and y

The line width for a given orientation [eqn] of the static magnetic field is given by [eqn] where [eqn], [eqn] and [eqn] are the three elements of HStrain.

If the spin system contains only one electron spin, it is possible to specify combined g and A strain or D strain.

gStrain
[FWHM_gx FWHM_gy FWHM_gz]
Defines the g strain for the electron spin. It specifies the FWHM widths of the Gaussian distributions of the g principal values (gx, gy and gz). The distributions are assumed to be completely uncorrelated.

If the spin system contains more than one electron spin, gStrain should contain one row for each electron spin.

AStrain
[FWHM_Ax FWHM_Ay FWHM_Az], in MHz
Vector of FWHM widths (in MHz) of the Gaussian distributions of the corresponding principal values in A (Ax, Ay, Az) of the first nucleus in the spin system. The distributions are completely uncorrelated. AStrain is not supported for systems with more than one electron spin, and it is only available for the first nucleus. To set the correlation between gStrain and AStrain, use the field gAStrainCorr.
gAStrainCorr
+1 (default) or -1
Sets the correlation between gStrain and AStrain. +1 indicates that positive change in gx is correlated with a positive change in Ax etc, whereas -1 indicates anticorrelation.
DStrain
FWHM_D or [FWHM_D FWHM_E]
Widths (FWHM) in MHz of the Gaussian distributions of the scalar parameters D and E that specify the D matrix of the zero-field interaction. If FWHM_E is omitted, it defaults to zero.

The distributions in D and in E are treated as uncorrelated, unless DStrainCorr is provided.

If the spin system contains more than one electron spin, DStrain should contain one row for each electron spin.

Examples: DStrain = [10, 5] specifies a Gaussian distribution of D with a FWHM of 10 MHz and a Gaussian distribution of E with a FWHM of 5 MHz. DStrain = [100 33] specifies a Gaussian distribution of D with a FWHM of 100 MHz and a Gaussian distribution of E with a FWHM of 33 MHz. For two electron spins, DStrain = [10 5; 100 20] specifies [10 5] for the first electron spin and [100 20] for the second.

DStrainCorr
+1 (default) or -1
Sets the correlation coefficient between D and E, which can be between -1 and +1. +1 indicates that positive change in D is correlated with a positive change in E, whereas -1 indicates anticorrelation. Any value between -1 and +1 is possible. If not given, it defaults to 0, and the distributions in D and E are uncorrelated.

If the spin system has more than one electron spin, give one correlation coefficient per electron spin.

Broadening via explicit averaging over distributions

You can model any arbitrary form of inhomogeneous broadening. For this, run explicit loops over distributions of spin Hamiltonian parameters, simulate the associated spectra and sum them up (including weights of the distribution function) to obtain an broadened spectrum.

This approach is necessary if the distributions are so broad as to render the built-in perturbational treatment invalid, or if you want to average over non-Gaussian distributions, or correlated distributions, or distributions over parameters other than g, A, and D.

Here is a basic example for a broad Gaussian distribution of D:

% Set up distribution of D
D0 = 1000;                      % center of distribution, MHz
Dfwhm = 500;                    % FWHM of distribution, MHz
D = linspace(0,2*D0,401);       % range of D values, MHz
weights = gaussian(D,D0,Dfwhm); % associated weights

% Spin system
Sys.S = 1;
Sys.lwpp = 1; % mT

% Experiment
Exp.mwFreq = 9.5; % GHz
Exp.Range = 330+ [-1 1]*100; % mT

% Explicit averaging loop over D distribution
spec = 0;
for iD = 1:numel(D)
  Sys.D = D(iD);
  [B,spec_] = pepper(Sys,Exp);
  spec = spec + weights(iD)*spec_;
end

% Plotting
subplot(2,1,1); plot(D,weights); axis tight
subplot(2,1,2); plot(B,spec); axis tight

If more than one parameter is distributed, then nested loops over a multi-dimensional distribution are needed.