No Arabic abstract
Of the dense Kondo materials in the class CeTSb2 (where T = Au, Ag, Ni, Cu, or Pd), CeAgSb2 is special due to its complex magnetic ground state, which exhibits both ferro- and anti-ferromagnetic character below an ordering temperature TO ~ 9.8 K. To further elucidate a description this magnetic ground state, we have carried out a systematic study of single crystalline CeAgSb2 by magnetic, electrical magneto-transport, and Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) studies over a broad range of temperature and magnetic field. We have constructed the magnetic phase diagram based solely on magnetoresistance data. Here, depending on the orientation of the magnetic field H, either ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic ordering occurs below TO. The resistivity of this compound below TO does not follow a simple Fermi liquid behavior, but requires an additional contribution from conduction electron scattering from boson excitations with an energy gap, D. At zero field the temperature dependent resistivity below TO is most consistent with antiferromagnetic order, based on the transport theory which includes magnon scattering. Crystal field effect theory applied to the susceptibility data yields splitting energies from the ground state to the first and second excited states of 53 K and 137 K, respectively. Although there is some uncertainty in the Kondo temperature determination, we estimate TK ~ 23 K from our analysis. In the Fermi surface studies, the measurements show very small Fermi surface sections, not predicted by band structure calculations, and the SdH amplitudes are very sensitive to field direction. Only by considering lens orbits between the main Fermi surface cylinders can the SdH results be reconciled with the Fermi surface topology predicted from band structure.
We report the observation of Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations in the underdoped cuprate superconductor YBa$_2$Cu$_4$O$_8$ (Y124). For field aligned along the c-axis, the frequency of the oscillations is $660pm 30$ T, which corresponds to $sim 2.4$ % of the total area of the first Brillouin zone. The effective mass of the quasiparticles on this orbit is measured to be $2.7pm0.3$ times the free electron mass. Both the frequency and mass are comparable to those recently observed for ortho-II YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6.5}$ (Y123-II). We show that although small Fermi surface pockets may be expected from band structure calculations in Y123-II, no such pockets are predicted for Y124. Our results therefore imply that these small pockets are a generic feature of the copper oxide plane in underdoped cuprates.
We report the magneto-transport properties of CaAl$_4$ single crystals with $C2/m$ structure at low temperature. CaAl$_4$ exhibits large unsaturated magnetoresistance $sim$3000$%$ at 2.5 K and 14 T. The nonlinear Hall resistivity is observed, which indicates the multi-band feature. The first-principles calculations show the electron-hole compensation and the complex Fermi surface in CaAl$_4$, to which the two-band model with over-simplified carrier mobility cant completely apply. Evident quantum oscillations have been observed with B//c and B//ab configurations, from which the nontrivial Berry phase is extracted by the multi-band Lifshitz-Kosevich formula fitting. An electron-type quasi-2D Fermi surface is found by the angle-dependent Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations, de Haas-van Alphen oscillations and the first-principles calculations. The calculations also elucidate that CaAl$_4$ owns a Dirac nodal line type band structure around the $Gamma$ point in the $Z$-$Gamma$-$L$ plane, which is protected by the mirror symmetry as well as the space inversion and time reversal symmetries. Once the spin-orbit coupling is included, the crossed nodal line opens a negligible gap (less than 3 meV). The open-orbit topology is also found in the electron-type Fermi surfaces, which is believed to help enhance the magnetoresistance observed.
Shubnikov de Haas oscillations for two well defined frequencies, corresponding respectively to areas of 0.8 and 1.36% of the first Brillouin zone (FBZ), were observed in single crystals of Na$_{0.3}$CoO$_2$. The existence of Na superstructures in Na$_{0.3}$CoO$_2$, coupled with this observation, suggests the possibility that the periods are due to the reconstruction of the large Fermi surface around the $Gamma$ point. An alternative interpretation in terms of the long sought-after $epsilon_g^prime$ pockets is also considered but found to be incompatible with existing specific heat data.
We present magnetoresistance studies of the quasi-two-dimensional organic conductor $kappa$-(BETS)$_2$Mn[N(CN)$_2$]$_3$, where BETS stands for bis-(ethylene-dithio)-tetra-selena-fulvalene. Under a moderate pressure of 1.4,kbar, required for stabilizing the metallic ground state, Shubnikov - de Haas oscillations, associated with a classical and a magnetic-breakdown cyclotron orbits on the cylindrical Fermi surface, have been found at fields above 10,T. The effective cyclotron masses evaluated from the temperature dependence of the oscillation amplitudes reveal strong renormalization due to many-body interactions. The analysis of the relative strength of the oscillations corresponding to the different orbits and its dependence on magnetic field suggests an enhanced role of electron-electron interactions on flat parts of the Fermi surface.
We report measurements of Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) oscillations in single crystals of BiTeCl at magnetic fields up to 31 T and at temperatures as low as 0.4 K. Two oscillation frequencies were resolved at the lowest temperatures, $F_{1}=65 pm 4$ Tesla and $F_{2}=156 pm 5$ Tesla. We also measured the infrared optical reflectance $left(cal R(omega)right)$ and Hall effect; we propose that the two frequencies correspond respectively to the inner and outer Fermi sheets of the Rashba spin-split bulk conduction band. The bulk carrier concentration was $n_{e}approx1times10^{19}$ cm$^{-3}$ and the effective masses $m_{1}^{*}=0.20 m_{0}$ for the inner and $m_{2}^{*}=0.27 m_{0}$ for the outer sheet. Surprisingly, despite its low effective mass, we found that the amplitude of $F_{2}$ is very rapidly suppressed with increasing temperature, being almost undetectable above $Tapprox4$ K.