No Arabic abstract
The caged compound LaRu2Zn20 exhibits a structural transition at TS =150 K, whose driving mechanism remains elusive. We have investigated atomic dynamics by the measurements of specific heat C and inelastic X-ray scattering (IXS). The lattice part of the specific heat Clat divided by T3, Clat/T3, shows a broad peak at around 15 K, which is reproduced by two Einstein modes with characteristic temperatures of 35 K and 82 K, respectively. IXS measurements along the [111] and [110] directions reveal optical phonon modes at 3 meV (35 K) and 7 meV (80 K), respectively, whose values agree with the values of Einstein temperatures. The first principles calculation has assigned the phonon modes at 3 meV as the optical modes of Zn atoms located at the middle of two La atoms. The low-energy vibration of the Zn atom perpendicular to the there-fold axis is thought to lead the structural instability of LaRu2Zn20.
The phonon dynamics of filled skutterudite CeRu4Sb12 have been studied at room temperature by inelastic neutron scattering. Optical phonons associated with a large vibration of Ce atoms are observed at a relatively low energy of E = 6 meV, and show anticrossing behavior with acoustic phonons. We propose that the origin of the low lattice thermal conductivity in filled skutterudites can be attributed to intensive Umklapp scattering originating from low-lying optical phonons. By an analysis based on a Born-von Karman force model, the longitudinal force constants of the nearest Ce-Sb and Ce-Ru pairs are estimated to be 0.025 mdyn/A, while that of the nearest Ru-Sb pair is estimated to be 1.4 mdyn/A, indicating that the Ce atoms are bound very weakly to the surrounding rigid RuSb6-octahedron cages.
A prototypical quasi-2D metallic compound, 1T-TaS_2 has been extensively studied due to an intricate interplay between a Mott-insulating ground state and a charge density-wave (CDW) order. In the low-temperature phase, 12 out of 13 Ta_{4+} 5textit{d}-electrons form molecular orbitals in hexagonal star-of-David patterns, leaving one 5textit{d}-electron with textit{S} = 1/2 spin free. This orphan quantum spin with a large spin-orbit interaction is expected to form a highly correlated phase of its own. And it is most likely that they will form some kind of a short-range order out of a strongly spin-orbit coupled Hilbert space. In order to investigate the low-temperature magnetic properties, we performed a series of measurements including neutron scattering and muon experiments. The obtained data clearly indicate the presence of the short-ranged phase and put the upper bound on ~ 0.4 textit{mu}_B for the size of the magnetic moment, consistent with the orphan-spin scenario.
We report the pressure dependence of the optical response of LaTe$_2$, which is deep in the charge-density-wave (CDW) ground state even at 300 K. The reflectivity spectrum is collected in the mid-infrared spectral range at room temperature and at pressures between 0 and 7 GPa. We extract the energy scale due to the single particle excitation across the CDW gap and the Drude weight. We establish that the gap decreases upon compressing the lattice, while the Drude weight increases. This signals a reduction in the quality of nesting upon applying pressure, therefore inducing a lesser impact of the CDW condensate on the electronic properties of LaTe$_2$. The consequent suppression of the CDW gap leads to a release of additional charge carriers, manifested by the shift of weight from the gap feature into the metallic component of the optical response. On the contrary, the power-law behavior, seen in the optical conductivity at energies above the gap excitation and indicating a weakly interacting limit within the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid scenario, seems to be only moderately dependent on pressure.
We have found that Ce3Pd20As6 crystallizes into a cubic C6Cr23-type structure. Combination of electron probe microanalysis of the chemical composition and Rietveld analysis of the powder X-ray diffraction pattern has revealed an inhomogeneous atomic composition of variable stoichiometry. The physical properties of Ce3Pd20As6 were investigated by measuring the magnetization, electrical resistivity and specific heat. The 4f electrons of Ce3+ ions are well localized but do not show phase transition down to 0.5 K. The metallic electrical resistivity shows a weak Kondo screening. The residual resistivity ratio is rather low probably due to the variable stoichiometry. The magnetization curve and magnetic entropy suggest the Gamma_8 quartet crystalline-electric-field ground state at least one of two Ce sites.
We report results from neutron scattering experiments on single crystals of YbBiPt that demonstrate antiferromagnetic order characterized by a propagation vector, $tau_{rm{AFM}}$ = ($frac{1}{2} frac{1}{2} frac{1}{2}$), and ordered moments that align along the [1 1 1] direction of the cubic unit cell. We describe the scattering in terms of a two-Gaussian peak fit, which consists of a narrower component that appears below $T_{rm{N}}~approx 0.4$ K and corresponds to a magnetic correlation length of $xi_{rm{n}} approx$ 80 $rm{AA}$, and a broad component that persists up to $T^*approx$ 0.7 K and corresponds to antiferromagnetic correlations extending over $xi_{rm{b}} approx$ 20 $rm{AA}$. Our results illustrate the fragile magnetic order present in YbBiPt and provide a path forward for microscopic investigations of the ground states and fluctuations associated with the purported quantum critical point in this heavy-fermion compound.