This review of dynamic nuclear polarisation (DNP) describes in some detail one specific procedure whereby nuclei at normal concentrations in solids acquire a large polarisation; namely, off-centre irradiation of the resonance of paramagnetic centres present at a much lower concentration in the sample to be polarised. This process of dynamic nuclear polarisation, originally named the 'solid effect', has proved very effective, and its importance far exceeds that of all other known methods of nuclear polarisation.Emphasis is laid throughout on the physical principles of DNP and on the latest developments in their unravelling.After a general introduction, two sections are devoted to a survey of the theories of spin temperature and of nuclear relaxation in solids. This is followed by a short section on the so-called well-resolved solid effect, and a much more detailed one on DNP by thermal mixing in the non-linear low spin-temperature domain. One then analyses the various methods of measurement of the nuclear polarisation, as well as an indirect method of detecting the electronic resonance based on the existence of large nuclear polarisations. T h e final section describes briefly several applications of dynamic nuclear polarisation.

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