Ab initio and relativistic DFT study of spin-rotation and NMR shielding constants in XF₆ molecules, X = S, Se, Te, Mo, and W.

We present an analysis of the spin-rotation and absolute shielding constants of XF6 molecules (X = S, Se, Te, Mo, W) based on ab initio coupled cluster and four-component relativistic density-functional theory (DFT) calculations. The results show that the relativistic contributions to the spin-rotation and shielding constants are large both for the heavy elements as well as for the fluorine nuclei. In most cases, incorporating the computed relativistic corrections significantly improves the agreement between our results and the well-established experimental values for the isotropic spin-rotation constants and their anisotropic components. This suggests that also for the other molecules, for which accurate and reliable experimental data are not available, reliable values of spin-rotation and absolute shielding constants were determined combining ab initio and relativistic DFT calculations. For the heavy nuclei, the breakdown of the relationship between the spin-rotation constant and the paramagnetic contribution to the shielding constant, due to relativistic effects, causes a significant error in the total absolute shielding constants.