The many manifestations of aromaticity have long fascinated both experimentalists and theoreticians. Due to their degenerate half-filled MOs, triplet [n]annulenes with 4n π-electrons are also aromatic, but the degree of their stabilization has been difficult to quantify. The isomerization stabilization energy (ISE) method has been applied to evaluate the triplet aromaticity. The reliability of this approach is indicated by the strong correlation of the ISE results with NICS(1)zz, a magnetic indicator of triplet state aromaticity.

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ol400908z