Magnetic Shielding, Aromaticity, Antiaromaticity, and Bonding in the Low-Lying Electronic States of Benzene and Cyclobutadiene.

Aromaticity, antiaromaticity, and their effects on chemical bonding in the ground states (S), lowest triplet states (T), and the first and second singlet excited states (S and S) of benzene (CH) and square cyclobutadiene (CH) are investigated by analyzing the variations in isotropic magnetic shielding around these molecules in each electronic state. All shieldings are calculated using state-optimized π-space complete-active-space self-consistent field (CASSCF) wave functions constructed from gauge-including atomic orbitals (GIAOs), in the 6-311++G(2d,2p) basis. It is shown that the profoundly different shielding distributions in the S states of CH and CH represent aromaticity and antiaromaticity "fingerprints" which are reproduced in other electronic states of the two molecules and allow classification of these states as aromatic (S and S for CH, T and S for CH) or antiaromatic (S and S for CH, T and S for CH).

The Synthesis of Structurally Diverse Macrocycles By Successive Ring Expansion.

Structurally diverse macrocycles and medium-sized rings (9-24 membered scaffolds, 22 examples) can be generated through a telescoped acylation/ring-expansion sequence, leading to the insertion of linear fragments into cyclic β-ketoesters without performing a discrete macrocyclization step. The key β-ketoester motif is regenerated in the ring-expanded product, meaning that the same sequence of steps can then be repeated (in theory indefinitely) with other linear fragments, allowing macrocycles with precise substitution patterns to be "grown" from smaller rings using the successive ring-expansion (SuRE) method.