Organized by the Institute of Experimental Physics, University of Bialystok and the Institute of Atomic Energy, Swierk under the auspices of the European Crystallographic Association; Committee of Crystallography, the Polish Academy of Sciences; and the Polish Neutron Scattering Society The School is financially supported in part by the International Union of Crystallography; the European Crystallographic Association; the European Office of Aerospace Research & Development; the Ministry of Science and Information Society Technologies; the Warsaw University of Technology; and the University of Bialystok.
		Muons in material research H. Figiel, P. Mietniowski, Department of Solid State Physics, Faculty of Physics and Applied Computer Science, AGH University of Science and Technology, Poland Topics The muons produced from the high-energy proton beam became a very useful tool in solid state physics, chemistry and materials research. The muon technique appears as a complementary technique for the neutron diffraction, Mösssbauer effect, positron annihilation and NMR studies. It provides a relevant, new, unique and novel information concerning local properties of matter. The most useful positive muons are usually produced in the reaction chain of high-energy protons with a graphite target and then are introduced into the investigated sample. The muon beam is polarised. The muons are detected by positrons emitted in direction of their spins within the time period comparable with their lifetime, which is about 2ms. In the case of metallic type samples the positive muons diffuse and locate at the interstitial sites behaving as the light proton. Through the interactions of their spin and magnetic moment with the local fields we get the information about the specific properties of its local environment. In the insulating materials the positive muons capture electrons behaving as light hydrogen-like atom called muonium. This can be used to analyse the chemical bonding. In analogy to NMR the static and dynamic properties can be detected. In particular the relaxation time at zero external fields is measured in contradiction to NMR where we measure relaxation times at high external fields. For para- or dia-magnetic materials the Knight shift and for the magnetically ordered materials the local fields acting on muons can be measured what helps in determination of magnetic structures as the complementary tool to the neutron diffraction studies. To prove usefulness of this technique some results of investigations using muons are reviewed. There are presented mSR measurements for magnetically ordered systems, low dimensional magnets, observations of magnetic excitations and fluctuations, research of perovskites, thin films and layers, investigations of heavy fermion materials and a search for quantum critical point, coexistence of magnetism and superconductivity, metallic hydrides, nano-materials, organic magnets and as well the investigations of electron conduction in DNA molecules.