Relaxation of local-moment nuclei in metals

The theory of nuclear-spin relaxation for magnetic impurities in non-magnetic metals is reviewed and compared with experiment. Both local-moment as well as localized spin-fluctuation limits of the impurity problem are discussed. The influence of the Kondo effect and of impurity-impurity interactions are briefly considered. The conditions under which observation of the local-moment NMR is practical and the information that can be obtained from such experiments are developed in some detail. Illustrative examples are drawn from recent work on Cu:55Mn and W:59Co alloys. Finally, the limitations of the isotropic conduction electron-local moment exchange model are explored.