Intermolecular shielding from molecular magnetic susceptibility. A new view of intermolecular ring current effects

This paper presents calculations of the NICS (nuclear independent chemical shieldings) in a rectangular grid surrounding the molecules of benzene, naphthalene and coronene. Using the relationship between calculated NICS and the induced magnetic field, the calculated NICS are used to predict intermolecular effects due to molecular magnetic susceptibility or ring current effects. As expected from approximate ring current models, these intermolecular shielding effects are concentrated along the direction perpendicular to the molecular plane and they approach asymptotically to a dipolar functional dependence, i.e. (1-3 cos(2)theta/r(3)). The deviations from the dipolar functional form require that the calculations of these intermolecular effects be done using a suitable interpolation scheme of the NICS calculated on the grid. The analysis of the NICS tensor components shows that these intermolecular shielding effects should be primarily expected on shielding components of the neighboring molecules nuclei, which are perpendicular to the molecular plane of the aromatic compound generating the induced field. The analysis of the calculated NICS along the series benzene, naphthalene and coronene shows that these intermolecular effects increase monotonically with the number of aromatic rings. Copyright (c) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.