A diffraction experiment using a high energy x-ray was carried out on YbInCu4. Below the Yb valence transition temperature, the splitting of Bragg peaks was detected in higher-order reflections. No superlattice reflections accompanying the valence ordering were found below the transition temperature. These experimental findings indicate that a structural change from a cubic structure to a tetragonal structure without valence ordering occurs at the transition temperature. Such a structural change free from any valence ordering is difficult to understand only in terms of Yb valence degrees of freedom. This means that the structural change may be related to electronic symmetries such as quadrupolar degrees of freedom as well as the change in Yb valence.
The electronic structure of (Ce,Yb)CoIn5 has been studied by a combination of photoemission, x-ray absorption and bulk property measurements. Previous findings of a Ce valence near 3+ for all x and of an Yb valence near 2.3+ for x>0.3 were confirmed. One new result of this study is that the Yb valence for x<0.2 increases rapidly with decreasing x from 2.3+ toward 3+, which correlates well with de Haas van Alphen results showing a change of Fermi surface around x=0.2. Another new result is the direct observation by angle resolved photoemission Fermi surface maps of about 50% cross sectional area reductions of the alpha- and beta-sheets for x=1 compared to x=0, and a smaller, essentially proportionate, size change of the alpha-sheet for x=0.2. These changes are found to be in good general agreement with expectations from simple electron counting. The implications of these results for the unusual robustness of superconductivity and Kondo coherence with increasing x in this alloy system are discussed.
Optical reflectivity R(w) of YbInCu4 single crystals has been measured across its first-order valence transition at T_v ~ 42 K, using both polished and cleaved surfaces. R(w) measured on cleaved surfaces Rc(w) was found much lower than that on polished surface Rp(w) over the entire infrared region. Upon cooling through T_v, Rc(w) showed a rapid change over a temperature range of less than 2 K, and showed only minor changes with further cooling. In contrast, Rp(w) showed much more gradual and continuous changes across T_v, similarly to previously reported data on polished surfaces. The present result on cleaved surfaces demonstrates that the microscopic electronic structures of YbInCu4 observed with infrared spectroscopy indeed undergo a sudden change upon the valence transition. The gradual temperature-evolution of Rp(w) is most likely due to the compositional and/or Yb-In site disorders caused by polishing.
Quantum criticality has been considered to be specific to crystalline materials such as heavy fermions. Very recently, however, the Tsai-type quasicrystal Au51Al34Yb15 has been reported to show unusual quantum critical behavior. To obtain a deeper understanding of this new material, we have searched for other Tsai-type cluster materials. Here, we report that the metal alloys Au44Ga41Yb15 and Ag47Ga38Yb15 are members of the 1/1 approximant to the Tsai-type quasicrystal and that both possess no localized magnetic moment. We suggest that the Au-Al-Yb system is located near the border of the divalent and trivalent states of the Yb ion; we also discuss a possible origin of the disappearance of magnetism, associated with the valence change, by the substitution of the constituent elements.
YbInCu$_4$ undergoes a first order structural phase transition near $T_v$=40 K associated with an abrupt change of Yb valence state. We perform ultrafast pump-probe measurement on YbInCu$_4$ and find that the expected heavy fermion properties arising from the emph{c-f} hybridization exist only in a limited temperature range above $T_v$. Below $T_v$, the compound behaves like a normal metal though a prominent hybridization energy gap is still present in infrared measurement. We elaborate that those seemingly controversial phenomena could be well explained by assuming that the Fermi level suddenly shifts up and becomes far away from the flat emph{f}-electron band as well as the indirect hybridization energy gap in the mixed valence state below $T_v$.
We report the first high-field x-ray diffraction experiment using synchrotron x-rays and pulsed magnetic fields exceeding 30 T. Lattice deformation due to a magnetic-field-induced valence transition in YbInCu4 is studied. It has been found that the Bragg reflection profile at 32 K changes significantly at around 27 T due to the structural transition. In the vicinity of the transition field the low-field and the high-field phases are observed simultaneously as the two distinct Bragg reflection peaks: This is a direct evidence of the fact that the field-induced valence state transition is the first order phase transition. The field-dependence of the low-field-phase Bragg peak intensity is found to be scaled with the magnetization.