Spin-phonon relaxation due to transverse optical modes

Restricted AccessA new mechanism has been proposed for the spin-lattice relaxation of paramagneticions in ionic host crystals by a two phonon process involving transverse optical phonons. The latter are shown to couple with the spin directly through an effective magnetic field associated with the transverse mode. An expression has been derived for the relaxation frequency. There seems to be satisfactory agreement with available experimental results of some ionic crystals