NMR studies of electronic properties of solids

TL;DR

This paper reviews how NMR techniques can probe the electronic properties of simple solids, including metals and superconductors, by analyzing parameters like shift and relaxation data, and highlights its ability to detect impurities and electronic gaps.

Contribution

It presents a comprehensive overview of NMR parameters related to electronic properties in simple solids, emphasizing their use in studying metals, superconductors, and disorder effects.

Findings

NMR shift and relaxation reveal electronic density of states in metals.

NMR can determine electronic gaps and superconducting states.

NMR detects impurities and disorder effects in solids.

Abstract

The NMR technique is quite essential as it permits atomic scale measurements in materials. The aim of this article is to present the main parameters accessible to NMR experiments and to relate them to the electronic properties of simple solids in which electronic correlations are not dominant. It will be shown that in metals the Pauli paramagnetism, that is the electronic density of states is accessible through NMR shift and spin lattice relaxation data. Those permit as well to determine electronic gaps in some electronic structures, or in the SC state. The capability to reveal by NMR the incidence of impurities and disorder is also underlined. A complementary article will be dedicated to the specific properties of strongly correlated materials which have been revealed and studied by NMR experiments.