Recent Advances in Theoretical and Physical Aspects of NMR Chemical Shifts

In the first part of this review, theoretical aspects of nuclear magnetic shielding include (a) general theory, for example, newly developed approaches in relativistic theory of nuclear shielding, the relation between the spin-rotation tensor and shielding in relativistic theory, ab initio methods for treating open shell systems and a complete theory of chemical shifts in paramagnetic systems, the link between the definitions of the elusive concepts aromaticity and anti-aromaticity and the magnetic properties: the magnetizability tensor and the nuclear magnetic shielding tensor via delocalized electron currents and electron current maps, (b) ab initio and DFT calculations, both relativistic and non-relativistic, for various nuclei in various molecular systems using various levels of theoretical treatment. Physical aspects include (a) anisotropy of the shielding tensor, usually from solid state measurements, and calculations to support these, (b) shielding surfaces and rovibrational averaging, paying special attention to the sensitive relationship between shielding and bond angles or torsion angles that makes shielding such a powerful tool for structural/conformational determination in macromolecules, (c) chemical shifts that arise from isotopic substitution of NMR nucleus or neighboring nuclei, (d) intermolecular effects on nuclear shielding, and (e) absolute shielding scales.