Confirming the Unusual Temperature Dependence of the Electric-Field Gradient in Zn
Heinz Haas,
Dmitry Zyabkin,
Juliana Schell,
Thien T. Dang,
Ian C. J. Yap,
Ilaria Michelon,
Daniel Gaertner,
Adeleh Mokhles Gerami,
Cornelia Noll,
Reinhard Beck
Affiliations
Heinz Haas
Department of Physics and CICECO, University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal
Dmitry Zyabkin
Chair Materials for Electrical Engineering and Electronics, Institute of Materials Science and Engineering, Institute of Micro and Nanotechnologies MacroNano®, TU Ilmenau, Gustav-Kirchhoff-Strasse 5, 98693 Ilmenau, Germany
Juliana Schell
EP Division, CERN, 1211 Geneve, Switzerland
Thien T. Dang
Institute for Materials Science and Center for Nanointegration Duisburg-Essen (CENIDE), University of Duisburg-Essen, 45141 Essen, Germany
Ian C. J. Yap
Physikalisches Institut, Georg-August Universität Göttingen, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
Ilaria Michelon
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Padova, 35122 Padova, Italy
Daniel Gaertner
Institute of Materials Physics, University of Münster, 48149 Münster, Germany
Adeleh Mokhles Gerami
School of Particles and Accelerators, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM), Tehran P.O. Box 19395-5531, Iran
Cornelia Noll
Helmholtz-Institut für Strahlen- und Kernphysik, University of Bonn, 53115 Bonn, Germany
Reinhard Beck
Helmholtz-Institut für Strahlen- und Kernphysik, University of Bonn, 53115 Bonn, Germany
The electric-field gradient (EFG) at nuclei in solids is a sensitive probe of the charge distribution. Experimental data, which previously only existed in insulators, have been available for metals with the development of nuclear measuring techniques since about 1970. An early, systematic investigation of the temperature dependence of the EFG in metals, originally based on results for Cd, but then also extended to various other systems, has suggested a proportionality to T3/2. However, later measurements in the structurally and electronically similar material Zn, which demonstrated much more complex behavior, were largely ignored at the time. The present experimental effort has confirmed the reliability of this unexpected behavior, which was previously unexplained.
