Hyperfine interaction of rare earth impurities in ferromagnetic metals

Abstract

The present knowledge concerning rare earth impurities implanted in iron and nickel is reviewed. New Mössbauer spectra on the isotopes¹⁶¹Dy,¹⁶⁶Er and¹⁶⁹Tm are presented. In the case of¹⁶¹DyFe and¹⁶¹DyNi both the annealing behaviour and the temperature dependence have been studied. It is shown that in almost all cases about half of the rare earth impurities end up in substitutional sites, whereas the other part probably is associated with vacancies. The temperature dependence for these systems is in accordance with the generally accepted local moment picture, with fast relaxation behaviour on the electronic moment at the substitutional sites. For the iron host the exchange interaction dominates the cubic crystalline electric field, but for nickel both interactions are of comparable magnitude, leading to a considerable decrease of the hyperfine interaction.