Magnetic criteria of aromaticity

Abstract

This review describes the current state of magnetic criteria of aromaticity. The introduction contains the fundamentals of ring currents in aromatic and antiaromatic systems, followed by a brief description of experimental and computational tools: NMR, diamagnetic susceptibility exaltation, current density analyses (CDA) and nucleus independent chemical shifts (NICS). This is followed by more comprehensive chapters: NMR – focusing on the work of R. Mitchell – NICS and CDA – describing the progress and development of the methods to their current state and presenting some examples of representative work.