Enhanced nuclear magnetic resonance in a non-magnetic cubic doublet

In this thesis two lanthanide compounds are studied which show enhanced nuclear magnetism at low temperatures: Rb2NaHoF6 and CsNaHoF6. Chapter II gives a description of the 4He-circulating refrigerator, which was built to provide the low temperatures required for the polarization of the enhanced nuclear moments. This type of dilution refrigerator was chosen because of its simple design and large cooling power. Chapter III is devoted to a comparison of the different types of dilution refrigerators. A theoretical discussion is given of their performance, starting from the differential equations, which govern the temperature distribution in the refrigerator. In chapter IV the actual performance of the refrigerator, described in chapter II is discussed. In chapter V a description of the NMR-apparatus, developed for very-low-temperature NMR experiments is given. In chapter VI experimental results on the compound Rb2NaHoF6 are presented. The CEF-ground state of this compound is probably the non-magnetic doublet GAMMA3, but at a temperature of 170 K a structural phase transition lowers the crystal symmetry from cubic to tetragonal and the doublet is split into two singlets. In chapter VII specific heat, (enhanced) nuclear magnetic resonance and magnetization measurements on the compound Cs2NaHoF6 are presented which also has a GAMMA3-doublet ground state. In zero magnetic field the degeneracy of the doublet is removed at a temperature of 393 mK, where a phase transition is induced by quadrupolar interactions. (Auth.)