NUCLEAR ELECTRIC QUADRUPOLE INTERACTION IN SINGLE CRYSTALS

Pound's theory of the dependence of electric quadrupole splitting of nuclear magnetic resonance absorption lines in a single crystal on the orientation of the crystal in an external magnetic field is extended to cover the case of a crystal with nonaxially symmetric electric field gradient at the site of the nuclei being investigated. It is shown that an experimental study of the angular dependence of this splitting for three independent rotations of the crystal about any three mutually perpendicular axes will yield complete information about the orientation of the principal axes and the degree of axial asymmetry of the electric field gradient tensor at the site of the nuclei, and also will give the absolute value of the quadrupole coupling constant for those nuclei.The authors' experiments on the splitting of the Li7 absorption lines in a single crystal of LiAl(SiO3)2 (spodumene) are described and are used to illustrate the theory. The absolute value of the quadrupole coupling constant for the Li7 nuclei ...