Recent advances in NMR crystallography and polymorphism

This chapter covers some recent developments in NMR crystallography with a focus on its application towards the identification and characterization of crystal structures and their polymorphs. NMR crystallography is a discipline that uses insights or constraints obtained from solid-state NMR spectroscopy and first-principles calculations to predict, identify, validate, or refine crystal structures. In recent years, there have been plenty of developments in the area of NMR crystallography as it applies to study polymorphism in organic and inorganic systems, the understanding of noncovalent bonding networks directing crystal growth, and the study of dynamic processes present within solids. We discuss these topics through the lens of solid-state NMR and consider some of the more innovative or unusual strategies being applied to these problems, such as dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) or nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR) spectroscopy. The focus is on literature reports from 2016 to mid-2020.