Artifacts Due To Setting the Receiver Gain Too High in 2D Homonuclear Experiments

Setting the receiver gain too high leads to very characteristic artifacts in 1D NMR spectra. If the receiver gain is set too high in 2D experiments, one can also expect artifacts in the 2D Fourier transformed data. In homonuclear experiments, setting the receiver gain too high will lead to parallel diagonal signals. This is illustrated in the COSY data in the figure below. In the left hand panel, the receiver was set correctly while in the right hand panel it was set too high. Dotted lines were drawn through the artifacts.