No Arabic abstract
We have measured the electrical resistivity of cerium monochalcogenices, CeS, CeSe, and CeTe, under high pressures up to 8 GPa. Pressure dependences of the antiferromagnetic ordering temperature $T_{N}$, crystal field splitting, and the $ln T$ anomaly of the Kondo effect have been studied to cover the whole region from the magnetic ordering regime at low pressure to the Fermi liquid regime at high pressure. $T_{N}$ initially increases with increasing pressure, and starts to decrease at high pressure as expected from the Doniachs diagram. Simultaneously, the $ln T$ behavior in the resistivity is enhanced, indicating the enhancement of the Kondo effect by pressure. It is also characteristic in CeX$_{c}$ that the crystal field splitting rapidly decreases at a common rate of $-12.2$ K/GPa. This leads to the increase in the degeneracy of the $f$ state and further enhancement of the Kondo effect. It is shown that the pressure dependent degeneracy of the $f$ state is a key factor to understand the pressure dependence of $T_{N}$, Kondo effect, magnetoresistance, and the peak structure in the temperature dependence of resistivity.
Dispersion relations of the crystal-field excitations in cubic antiferromagnets CeTe, CeSe, and CeS have been investigated by inelastic neutron scattering using single crystalline samples. The Fourier transform of the magnetic exchange interaction $J(q)$ obtained from the crystal-field dispersion is largely different from that of the mean-field interaction obtained from the Neel temperature and the Weiss temperature. From detailed reexamination of the magnetic susceptibility and these $J(q)$ relations, we conclude that the magnetic exchange interaction is dependent on the crystal-field levels. The interaction associated with the $Gamma_8$ excited state is stronger than that with the $Gamma_7$ ground state.
We have measured resistivity as a function of temperature and pressure of Ti4O7 twinned crystals using different contact configurations. Pressures over 4kbar depress the localization of bipolarons and allow the study of the electrical conduction of the bipolaronic phase down to low temperatures. For pressures P > 40 kbar the bipolaron formation transition is suppressed and a nearly pressure independent behavior is obtained for the resistivity. We observed an anisotropic conduction. When current is injected parallel to the principal axis, a metallic conduction with interacting carrier effects is predominant. A superconducting state was not obtained down to 1.2 K, although evidences of the proximity of a quantum critical point were noticed. While when current is injected non-parallel to the crystals principal axis, we obtained a logarithmic divergence of the resistivity at low temperatures. For this case, our results for the high pressure regime can be interpreted in the framework of interacting carriers (polarons or bipolarons) scattered by Two Level Systems.
Based on a systematic analysis of the thermal evolution of the resistivities of Fe-based chalcogenides Fe$_{1+delta }$Te$_{1-x}X_{x}$ ($X$= Se, S), it is inferred that their often observed nonmetallic resistivities are related to a presence of two resistive channels: one is a high-temperature thermally-activated process while the other is a low-temperature log-in-$T$ process. On lowering temperature, there are often two metal-to-nonmetall crossover events: one from the high-$T$ thermally-activated nonmetallic regime into a metal-like phase and the other from the log-in-$T$ regime into a second metal-like phase. Based on these events, together with the magnetic and superconducting transitions, a phase diagram is constructed for each series. We discuss the origin of both processes as well as the associated crossover events. We also discuss how these resistive processes are being influenced by pressure, intercalation, disorder, doping, or sample condition and, in turn, how these modifications are shaping the associated phase diagrams.
Thin films of silver containing 0.3 - 1.5 at % Fe have been prepared by vapor co-deposition. Depending on substrate temperature and iron concentration we could systematically follow the formation of nanometer size clusters of iron from initially dilute iron monomers. samples were characterized via X-ray diffraction, resistivity and M{o}ssbauer spectroscopic measurements. The magnetic behavior derived from M{o}ssbauer data can be best described with an ensemble of ferromagnetic mono-domain particles. The magnetic freezing observed at low temperatures, is controlled via the inter-particle interactions mediated via conduction electron polarization, i.e. RKKY interaction. The interaction of the cluster magnetic moments with the conduction electron sea is best quantified by the electrical resistivity data. For all studied concentrations we find a non-monotonic variation with temperature which can be understood by competing shielding of the cluster moments by conduction electron spin scattering due to Kondo effect and the magnetic coupling.
The metal to insulator transition in the charge transfer NiS{2-x}Se{x} compound has been investigated through infrared reflectivity. Measurements performed by applying pressure to pure NiS2 (lattice contraction) and by Se-alloying (lattice expansion) reveal that in both cases an anomalous metallic state is obtained. We find that optical results are not compatible with the linear Se-alloying vs Pressure scaling relation previously established through transport, thus pointing out the substantially different microscopic origin of the two transitions.