Hybridization between conduction electrons and the strongly interacting f-electrons in rare earth or actinide compounds may result in new states of matter. Depending on the exact location of the concomitant hybridization gap with respect to the Fermi energy, a heavy fermion or an insulating ground state ensues. To study this entanglement locally, we conducted scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy (STS) measurements on the "Kondo insulator" SmB 6 . The vast majority of surface areas investigated were reconstructed, but infrequently, patches of varying sizes of nonreconstructed Smor B-terminated surfaces also were found. On the smallest patches, clear indications for the hybridization gap with logarithmic temperature dependence (as expected for a Kondo system) and for intermultiplet transitions were observed. On nonreconstructed surface areas large enough for coherent cotunneling, we were able to observe clear-cut Fano resonances. Our locally resolved STS indicated considerable finite conductance on all surfaces independent of their structure, not proving but leaving open the possibility of the existence of a topologically protected surface state.M aterials with strong electron correlations continue to draw enormous attention, not only because they may give rise to fundamentally new states of matter or new phenomena but also because of the hope for advanced technological applications. Heavy fermion (HF) materials, i.e., intermetallics of certain rare earths (REs), such as Ce, Sm, and Yb, are model systems to study strong electronic correlations (1). Here, the RE-derived localized 4f states are covalently mixed with the conduction-band states and, thus, acquire a finite lifetime. The associated decay rate in relation to the energy of the localized 4f state corresponds to the valency. In an Sm-based HF system, the valence lies between 3+ (4f 5 ) and 2+ (4f 6 ), which implies a considerable amount of charge fluctuations. This usually is referred to as intermediate valence (2). In addition to the abovementioned mixing of 4f states and the conduction band, which is well described within the framework of one-electron models, a manybody interaction is operating between the 4f and conduction electrons. This "Kondo effect" (3) eventually leads to a screening of the local moments as a result of particle-hole excitations that are manifested by a narrow Abrikosov-Suhl, or Kondo, resonance at E F , the width of which is given by the single-ion Kondo temperature T K .Because of the periodic arrangement of REs in an HF intermetallic, the Kondo resonances form a weakly dispersive HF or "coherent 4f−" band, resulting in a heavy Fermi liquid state well below T K . The band interaction between the renormalized 4f and the conduction band generates a so-called hybridization gap, which opens at around T K . Under certain conditions, E F may reside inside this gap, characterizing a so-called Kondo insulator (4).SmB 6 is such a Kondo insulator, with a valence ν ∼ 2:6 (5), ν being slightly temperature dependent (6, 7). A sharp de...

Topological insulators host spin-polarized surface states which robustly span the band gap and hold promise for novel applications. Recent theoretical predictions have suggested that topologically protected surface states may similarly span the hybridization gap in some strongly correlated heavy fermion materials, particularly SmB6. However, the process by which the Sm 4f electrons hybridize with the 5d electrons on the surface of SmB6, and the expected Fermi-level gap in the density of states out of which the predicted topological surface states must arise, have not been directly measured. We use scanning tunneling microscopy to conduct the first atomic resolution spectroscopic study of the cleaved surface of SmB6, and to reveal a robust hybridization gap which universally spans the Fermi level on four distinct surface morphologies despite shifts in the f band energy. Using a cotunneling model, we separate the density of states of the hybridized bands from which the predicted topological surface states must be disentangled. On all surfaces we observe residual spectral weight spanning the hybridization gap down to the lowest T , which is consistent with a topological surface state.

Kondo insulators are primary candidates in the search for strongly correlated topological quantum phases, which may host topological order, fractionalization, and non-Abelian statistics. Within some Kondo insulators, the hybridization gap is predicted to protect a nontrivial topological invariant and to harbor emergent heavy Dirac fermion surface modes. We use high-energy-resolution spectroscopic imaging in real and momentum space on the Kondo insulator, SmB6. On cooling through T * ∆ ≈ 35 K we observe the opening of an insulating gap that expands to ∆ ≈ 10 meV at 2 K. Within the gap, we image the formation of linearly dispersing surface states with effective masses reaching m * = (410 ± 20)me. We thus demonstrate existence of a strongly correlated topological Kondo insulator phase hosting the heaviest known Dirac fermions.

No abstract

No abstract