The notion of phase cycle
The phase cycles or phase programs allow to :
-choose the relevant signals and to neglect these ones which do not contain information and which, eventually, are susceptible to hide some other useful signals.
-discriminate the sign of the frequencies in the fl dimension.
-compensate the inhomogeneities from one or several impulsions in the sequence,
-to achieve an optimal quadratic detection in the f2 axis[1]. (5)
Any impulsion in a sequence has its own phase cycle which may be more or less complex.
The ideal number of scans must be a multiple of the phase number of the longer cycle.
For a better understanding of this method, a standard nomenclature has been defined.
Example : The cyclops cycle
= x, y, -x, -y. 0, 1, 2, 3.
This cycle involves the accumulation of a multiple of 4 numbers between each free precession.
The first impulsion
occurs around the x and the emission will occur in the y axis, the third impulsion along the - x and the reception in -y, etc...
There are other variations of this cycle like the following:
= x, y, -x, -y, or 0, 2, 1, 3.
Or still :
= x, x, -x, -x, y, y, -y, -y or 0, 0, 2, 2, 1, 1, 3, 3.
This last one implies a multiple of 8 transient cycles in the accumulation.
