Development of advanced NMR techniques with applications to chemical systems

Specialized advances in the methodology of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy are introduced in this thesis. The work presented here includes a broad range of both solid and liquid-state NMR techniques. Improvements to both the experimental and the subsequent data processing stages are introduced and explored. A major area of interest is the measurement of dipolar coupling constants in solid-state NMR experiments, which are useful because of their direct relation to internuclear distances and hence yield valuable structural information. New experimental and data processing methods for the determination of dipolar coupling constants are discussed. Improved techniques for measuring isotropic and anisotropic chemical shifts and quadrupolar parameters in solids are also introduced. In addition, improvements to existing techniques for the measurement of liquid-state J-coupling constants are described. Applications of these methods to a diverse variety of chemical systems are then given. These include studies of small biochemical molecules, catalytically-active materials, and compounds with distinct electromechanical properties.