First-principles calculation of 17O and 25Mg NMR shieldings in MgO at finite temperature: rovibrational effect in solids

The temperature dependence of (17)O and (25)Mg NMR chemical shifts in solid MgO have been calculated using a first-principles approach. Density functional theory, pseudopotentials, a plane-wave basis set, and periodic boundary conditions were used both to describe the motion of the nuclei and to compute the NMR chemical shifts. The chemical shifts were obtained using the gauge-including projector augmented wave method. In a crystalline solid, the temperature dependence is due to both (i) the variation of the averaged equilibrium structure and (ii) the fluctuation of the atoms around this structure. In MgO, the equilibrium structure at each temperature is uniquely defined by the cubic lattice parameters, which we take from experiment. We evaluate the effect of the fluctuations within a quasiharmonic approximation. In particular, the dynamical matrix, defining the harmonic Hamiltonian, has been computed for each equilibrium volume. This harmonic Hamiltonian was used to generate nuclear configurations that obey quantum statistical mechanics. The chemical shifts were averaged over these nuclear configurations. The results reproduce the previously published experimental NMR data measured on MgO between room temperature and 1000 degrees C. It is shown that the chemical shift behavior with temperature cannot be explained by thermal expansion alone. Vibrational corrections due to the fluctuations of atoms around their equilibrium position are crucial to reproduce the experimental results.