Preface

More than five decades have passed since the young German physicist Rudolf L. M€ossbauer discovered the recoilless nuclear resonance (absorption) fluorescence of g-radiation. The spectroscopic method based on this resonance effect – referred to as M€ossbauer spectroscopy – has subsequently developed into a powerful tool in solid-state research. The users are chemists, physicists, biologists, geologists, and scientists from other disciplines, and the spectrum of problems amenable to this method has become extraordinarily broad. Up to now, more than 60,000 reports have appeared in the literature dealing with applications of the M€ossbauer effect in the characterization of a vast variety of materials. Besides many workshops, seminars, and symposia, a biannual conference series called The International Conference on the Applications of the M€ossbauer Effect (ICAME) started in 1960 (Urbana, USA) and regularly brings together scientists who are actively working on fundamental – as well as industrial – applications of the M€ossbauer effect. Undoubtedly, M€ossbauer spectroscopy has taken its place as an important analytical tool among other physical methods of solid-state research. By the same token, high-level education in solid-state physics, chemistry, and materials science in the broadest sense is strongly encouraged to dedicate sufficient space in the curriculum to this versatile method. The main objective of this book is to assist the fulfillment of this purpose. Many monographs and review articles on the principles and applications of M€ossbauer spectroscopy have appeared in the literature in the past. However, significant developments regarding instrumentation, methodology, and theory related to M€ossbauer spectroscopy, have been communicated recently, which have widened the applicability and thus, merit in our opinion, the necessity of updating the introductory literature. We have tried to present a state-of-the-art book which concentrates on teaching the fundamentals, using theory as much as needed and as little as possible, and on practical applications. Some parts of the book are based on the first edition published in 1978 in the Springer series “Inorganic Chemistry Concepts” by P. Gütlich, R. Link, and A.X. Trautwein. Major updates have been included on practical aspects of measurements, on the computation of M€ossbauer