Several rare-earth monopnictides were shown to exhibit extreme magnetoresistance and field-induced low-temperature plateau of electrical resistivity. These features are also hallmarks of topological semimetals, thus the family is intensively explored with respect to magneto-transport properties and possible hosting Dirac fermion states. We report a comprehensive investigation of Fermi surface and electrical transport properties of LuSb, another representative of this family. At low temperatures, the magnetoresistance of LuSb was found to exceed 3000% without saturation in fields up to 9 T. Analysis of the Hall effect and the Shubnikov–de Haas oscillations revealed that the Fermi surface of this compound consists of several pockets originating from fairly compensated multi-band electronic structure, in full accordance with our first-principles calculations. Observed magnetotransport properties of LuSb can be attributed to the topology of three-dimensional Fermi surface and a compensation of electron and hole contributions.

Single crystals of TbPdBi, a representative of the group of half-Heusler bismuthides, were studied by means of magnetic susceptibility, heat capacity, electrical resistivity, magnetostriction and thermal expansion measurements.

Here, non-spin-polarized electronic structures and Fermi surface properties of RX 2Al 20 (R = La, Ce, Yb, Th, U; X = Ti, V, Cr, Mn) intermetallic compounds were calculated using the full potential all-electron local orbital (FPLO) approach in the framework of the local density approximation (LDA). Trends of the magnetism are discussed in terms of the characteristics of X-3d bands with a quantitative analysis of the relationship between band electron filling and crystal electric field splitting. Since coordination icosahedra of X-atoms have small trigonal distortion, crystal electric field splits the fivefold degenerate X-3d state into lowenergy singlet and two higher-energy doublets e g. In RTi 2Al 20 and RV 2Al 20 the population of the related 3d sub-band is not sufficient to cause energetically favorable spin polarization, whereas magnetic instabilities develop in the RCr 2Al 20 series. Finally, a manifestation of strong repulsive interactions between itinerant Mn-d electrons become most pronounced in ferromagnetic UMn 2Al 20. The influence of non-magnetic R-f states on magnetic and thermodynamic properties is discussed with special emphasis on the role of the f-p and f-d hybridization. For LaTi 2Al 20 and LaV 2Al 20 the calculated quantum oscillation frequencies are in accord with experimental reports

Single-crystals of LuSb were investigated by means of electrical resistivity and magnetoresistance measurements. The compound was found to exhibit giant magnetoresistance exceeding 3000%, low-temperature resistivity plateau, and Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations. It was characterized as a semimetal with nearly balanced contributions of electron and hole carriers to the magnetotransport properties. The experimental findings, supported by the results of electronic structure calculations, proved that the magnetotransport in LuSb can be described in the scope of 3D multi-band Fermi surface model without topologically non-trivial electronic states.