The thermal expansion and heat capacity of FeSb2 at ambient pressure agrees with a picture of a temperature induced spin state transition within the Fe t_{2g} multiplet. However, high pressure powder diffraction data show no sign of a structural phase transition up to 7GPa. A bulk modulus B=84(3)GPa has been extracted and the temperature dependence of the Gruneisen parameter has been determined. We discuss here the relevance of a Kondo insulator description for this material.
We show that synthesis-induced Metal -Insulator transition (MIT) for electronic transport along the orthorombic c axis of FeSb$_{2}$ single crystals has greatly enhanced electrical conductivity while keeping the thermopower at a relatively high level. By this means, the thermoelectric power factor is enhanced to a new record high S$^{2}$$sigma$ $sim$ 8000 $mu$WK$^{-2}$cm$^{-1}$ at 28 K. We find that the large thermopower in FeSb$_{2}$ can be rationalized within the correlated electron model with two bands having large quasiparaticle disparity, whereas MIT is induced by subtle structural differences. The results in this work testify that correlated electrons can produce extreme power factor values.
We report inelastic neutron scattering measurements aimed at investigating the origin of the temperature-induced paramagnetism in the narrow-gap semiconductor FeSb2. We find that inelastic response for energies up to 60 meV and at temperatures 4.2 K, 300 K and 550 K is essentially consistent with the scattering by lattice phonon excitations. We observe no evidence for a well-defined magnetic peak corresponding to the excitation from the non-magnetic S = 0 singlet ground state to a state of magnetic multiplet in the localized spin picture. Our data establish the quantitative limit of S_{eff}^2 < 0.25 on the fluctuating local spin. However, a broad magnetic scattering continuum in the 15 meV to 35 meV energy range is not ruled out by our data. Our findings make description in terms of the localized Fe spins unlikely and suggest that paramagnetic susceptibility of itinerant electrons is at the origin of the temperature-induced magnetism in FeSb2.
The resistance of a conventional insulator diverges as temperature approaches zero. The peculiar low temperature resistivity saturation in the 4f Kondo insulator (KI) SmB6 has spurred proposals of a correlation-driven topological Kondo insulator (TKI) with exotic ground states. However, the scarcity of model TKI material families leaves difficulties in disentangling key ingredients from irrelevant details. Here we use angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) to study FeSb2, a correlated d-electron KI candidate that also exhibits a low temperature resistivity saturation. On the (010) surface, we find a rich assemblage of metallic states with two-dimensional dispersion. Measurements of the bulk band structure reveal band renormalization, a large temperature-dependent band shift, and flat spectral features along certain high symmetry directions, providing spectroscopic evidence for strong correlations. Our observations suggest that exotic insulating states resembling those in SmB6 and YbB12 may also exist in systems with d instead of f electrons.
Recently, the resistance saturation at low temperature in Kondo insulator SmB6, a long-standing puzzle in condensed matter physics, was proposed to originate from topological surface state. Here,we systematically studied the magnetoresistance of SmB6 at low temperature up to 55 Tesla. Both temperature- and angular-dependent magnetoresistances show a similar crossover behavior below 5 K. Furthermore, the angular-dependent magnetoresistance on different crystal face confirms a two-dimensional surface state as the origin of magnetoresistances crossover below 5K. Based on two-channels model consisting of both surface and bulk states, the field-dependence of bulk gap with critical magnetic field (Hc) of 196 T is extracted from our temperature-dependent resistance under different magnetic fields. Our results give a consistent picture to understand the low-temperature transport behavior in SmB6, consistent with topological Kondo insulator scenario.
Undoped and slightly Eu-doped SmB6 show the opening of a gap with decreasing temperature below ~150 K. The spectral shapes near the Fermi level (EF) at 15 K have shown strong increase in intensity of a peak at a binding energy (EB) of around 12 meV with decreasing the photon energy (hn) from 17 eV down to 7 eV. Angle resolved spectra of SmB6 measured at hn = 35 eV just after the in-situ cleavage showed clear dispersions of several bands in the EB region from EF to 4 eV. Spin-polarized photoelectron spectra were then measured at 12 K and light incidence angle of ~50 deg. In contrast to the lack of spin polarization for the linearly polarized light excitation, clear spin polarization was observed in the case of circularly polarized light excitation. The two prominent peaks at EB~12 and ~150 meV have shown opposite signs of spin polarization which are reversed when the helicity of the light is reversed. The sign and the magnitude of spin- polarization are consistent with a theoretical prediction for the 6H5/2 and 6H7/2 states.