The Snoek Relaxation in Dilute Ternary bcc Alloys. A Review

Abstract
The Snoek relaxation due to interstitial solutes in bcc metals is often affected markedly by the presence of a small amount of substitutional solute atoms. This effect is believed to originate from the interaction between the substitutional and interstitial solute atoms, or the s-i interaction. This review summarizes first the experimental observations on the Snoek relaxation in various dilute alloys such as Fe-M-C/N and V/Nb/Ta-M-O/N, and describes next the theoretical studies on the thermodynamics and kinetics of the relaxation. It is suggested from recent studies that careful examinations of the variation of the spectrum with solute concentrations are useful for quantitative characterization of the s-i interaction.