Spin fluctuations in Al₃V: An NMR study

We report the results of a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) study of Al₃V at temperatures between 4 and 300 K. ⁵¹V and ²⁷Al Knight shifts exhibit a Curie-Weiss behavior corresponding to an effective moment P_eff≃0.32μ_B per V, indicating intrinsic weak magnetism localized in vanadium orbitals. The T₁ exhibits a √T dependence at higher temperatures, indicative of nearly antiferromagnetic behavior of itinerant electrons. We have fit the observed behavior within the self-consistent renormalized model for itinerant magnetism, which provides good agreement with the measurements. At about 80 K, the Knight shifts and spin-lattice relaxation rates exhibit a crossover from Curie-Weiss magnetism to Korringa behavior. Comparing previously reported specific heat and transport results with our NMR results, we find that the Wilson ratio and Kadowaki-Woods relation are close to those observed for highly correlated electron compounds, despite the relatively small enhancement of γ and χ.