Communication: Dissolution DNP reveals a long-lived deuterium spin state imbalance in methyl groups.

We report the generation and observation of long-lived spin states in deuterated methyl groups by dissolution DNP. These states are based on population imbalances between manifolds of spin states corresponding to irreducible representations of the C3v point group and feature strongly dampened quadrupolar relaxation. Their lifetime depends on the activation energies of methyl group rotation. With dissolution DNP, we can reduce the deuterium relaxation rate by a factor up to 20, thereby extending the experimentally available time window. The intrinsic limitation of NMR spectroscopy of quadrupolar spins by short relaxation times can thus be alleviated.