Abstract

Unlike other forms of spectroscopy, NMR is blind to chirality since the spectra of a molecule and its mirror image are identical unless the solvent is chiral. However, a chiral solute will produce a precessing electric polarization, in addition to the precessing nuclear magnetization, following a pi/2 pulse. The effect, due to the nuclear magnetic shielding polarizability, is equal and opposite for a molecule and its mirror image but is small and has not yet been observed. It will be shown that a large enhancement of the effect occurs in dipolar solutes through partial orientation of the permanent dipole by means of the antisymmetric part of the nuclear magnetic shielding tensor. The electric dipole precesses with the nuclear magnetic moment and produces a much larger temperature-dependent electric polarization with better prospects of detection.