Pressure is the cleanest way to tune heavy fermion systems to a quantum phase transition in order to study the rich physics and competing phases, and the comparison between ytterbium and cerium systems is particularly fruitful. We briefly review the
mechanisms in play and show some examples of expected and unexpected behaviour. We emphasize the importance of the valence changes under pressure and show how modern synchrotron techniques can accurately determine this, including at low temperature.
We demonstrate from detailed ac-susceptibility and calorimetry studies under hydrostatic pressure that YbCu2Si2 probably orders ferromagnetically at high pressure. The (p,H,T) phase diagram, shows that the transition temperature increases with pressu
re, but also with an applied magnetic field. We suggest that many ytterbium systems may show a trend towards ferromagnetism and we discuss the possible reasons for this. We also examine the implications, including the potential of YbCu2Si2 and other Yb compounds for further studies of the rich physical properties that may occur near a ferromagnetic critical point.
We report on specific heat ($C_p$), transport, Hall probe and penetration depth measurements performed on Fe(Se$_{0.5}$Te$_{0.5}$) single crystals ($T_c sim 14$ K). The thermodynamic upper critical field $H_{c2}$ lines has been deduced from $C_p$ mea
surements up to 28 T for both $H|c$ and $H|ab$, and compared to the lines deduced from transport measurements (up to 55 T in pulsed magnetic fields). We show that this {it thermodynamic} $H_{c2}$ line presents a very strong downward curvature for $T rightarrow T_c$ which is not visible in transport measurements. This temperature dependence associated to an upward curvature of the field dependence of the Sommerfeld coefficient confirm that $H_{c2}$ is limited by paramagnetic effects. Surprisingly this paramagnetic limit is visible here up to $T/T_c sim 0.99$ (for $H|ab$) which is the consequence of a very small value of the coherence length $xi_c(0) sim 4 AA$ (and $xi_{ab}(0) sim 15 AA$), confirming the strong renormalisation of the effective mass (as compared to DMFT calculations) previously observed in ARPES measurements [Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 097002 (2010)]. $H_{c1}$ measurements lead to $lambda_{ab}(0) = 430 pm 50$ nm and $lambda_c(0) = 1600 pm 200$ nm and the corresponding anisotropy is approximatively temperature independent ($sim 4$), being close to the anisotropy of $H_{c2}$ for $Trightarrow T_c$. The temperature dependence of both $lambda$ ($propto T^2$) and the electronic contribution to the specific heat confirm the non conventional coupling mechanism in this system.
We report on the synthesis of superconducting single crystals of FeSe, and their characterization by X-ray diffraction, magnetization and resistivity. We have performed ac susceptibility measurements under high pressure in a hydrostatic liquid argon
medium up to 14 GPa and we find that TC increases up to 33-36 K in all samples, but with slightly different pressure dependences on different samples. Above 12 GPa no traces of superconductivity are found in any sample. We have also performed a room temperature high pressure X-ray diffraction study up to 12 GPa on a powder sample, and we find that between 8.5 GPa and 12 GPa, the tetragonal PbO structure undergoes a structural transition to a hexagonal structure. This transition results in a volume decrease of about 16%, and is accompanied by the appearance of an intermediate, probably orthorhombic phase.
The low-energy magnetic excitations of the noncentrosymmetric heavy-fermion superconductor CePt3Si have been measured with inelastic neutron scattering on a single crystal. Kondo-type spin fluctuations with an anisotropic wave vector dependence are o
bserved in the paramagnetic state. These fluctuations do not survive in the antiferromagnetically ordered state below TN=2.2 K but are replaced by damped spin waves, whose dispersion is much stronger along the c-axis than in other directions. No change is observed in the excitation spectrum or the magnetic order as the system enters the superconducting state below Tc=0.7 K.
