Rare earth hyperfine interactions studied by perturbed angular correlations

This paper reviews the application of the perturbed angular correlation (PAC/D) technique to studies of rare earth hyperfine interactions. First, PAC/D measurements of the interaction of rare-earth nuclei with the large hyperfine fields of their own partially filled 4f electronic shell are discussed. It is shown that PAC/D spectroscopy is particularly useful for the investigation of 4f spin relaxation in liquid and solid environments, and for the study of the formation and stability of 4f magnetic moments in metallic hosts. The second part of the paper deals with the static hyperfine interaction of non-rare-earth impurity nuclei in the hexagonal, magnetically ordered rare-earth metals. The PAC/D contributions to the systematic investigation of impurity electric field gradients and magnetic hyperfine fields in rare earths are discussed. The importance of PAC/D as the main source of information on the temperature dependence of impurity hyperfine interactions in rare earths is stressed. The trends of the electric field gradients are compared to the behaviour of simpler non-cubic metal systems. The magnetic fields are discussed in the context of current theories.