Influence of pore size on the Knight shift in liquid tin and mercury in a confined geometry

¹¹⁹Sn and ¹⁹⁹Hg NMR studies were carried out for metallic tin and mercury embedded in synthetic opals and porous glasses. The Knight shift for confined liquid tin and mercury was found to decrease monotonically with decreasing pore size, evidence for the reduction of electron susceptibility. Size-induced alterations in the Knight shift were more pronounced for confined mercury than for tin. The influence of pore filling on the NMR line shape and Knight shift was observed for tin within opal. The reasons for the decreasing Knight shift for liquid metals in a confined geometry are discussed. Correlations between the alteration in the Knight shift and atomic number are shown, the changes in fractional values of the Knight shift remaining almost identical.