Some Developments in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance of Solids

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy continues to evolve as a primary technique in the study of solids. This review briefly describes some developments in modern NMR that demonstrate its exciting potential as an analytical tool in fields as diverse as physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and materials science. Topics covered include motional narrowing by sample reorientation, multiple-quantum and overtone spectroscopy, probing porous solids with guest atoms and molecules, two-dimensional NMR studies of chemical exchange and spin diffusion, experiments at extreme temperatures, NMR imaging of solid materials, and low-frequency and zero-field magnetic resonance. These developments permit increasingly complex structural and dynamical behavior to be probed at a molecular level and thus add to our understanding of macroscopic properties of materials.