Low-temperature study of the strongly correlated compound Ce₃Rh₄Sn₁₃

Abstract

Low-temperature results of the thermodynamic and transport properties of polycrystalline Ce3Rh4Sn13 are presented. The study of the ground-state properties reveals that Kondo interactions become important below 2 K, as evidenced by a large Sommerfeld coefficient and high magnetic resistivity. At 1 K the specific heat exhibits a broad peak that is attributed to short-range magnetic order. Support is given by ac susceptibility measurements. The resistivity and the susceptibility around 80 K are dominated by effects due to the crystal electric field splitting of the Ce3+ multiplet. Additionally, clear indications for local vibrations of Sn(2) atoms within the cage-like structure are deduced from an Einstein term in the specific heat. The crystal structure is known to form two atomic cages: one in which the Ce atoms are located; the other containing the Sn(2) atoms. Although strong correlations at low T are present in this system, the thermopower is found to be surprisingly small.

Electronic, magnetic, and electric transport properties of Ce3Rh4Sn13and CeŚlebarski1, White2, Fijałkowski3 et al. 2012Phys. Rev. B

“…A very similar result was obtained previously for both compounds. 3,5 The low temperature heat capacity gives magnetic entropy S magn = R ln 2 at about 2 K (in Fig. 9) indicating that the peak in C/T represents the behavior of the ground state doublet, as was previously confirmed by inelastic neutron scattering studies, 9 and a weak Kondo effect.…”

“…The thermopower of Ce 3 Rh 4 Sn 13 is weakly temperature dependent and small. 5,7 (ii) Heavy fermion compound Ce 3 Ir 4 Sn 13 orders antiferromagnetically and demonstrates an intriguing double peak feature in the specific heat at 2.1 and 0.6 K. 6 On the other hand, low-temperature neutron diffraction results 8,9 and specific heat measurements 3,5 show no evidence for long-range magnetic order in either Ce 3 Co 4 Sn 13 or Ce 3 Rh 4 Sn 13 ; although there is evidence for two magnetic phase transitions at 1.2 and 2 K in the heat capacity data reported for the Rh-sample. 10 Recently, our theoretical simulation of vacancies at the 2a sites revealed, within the virtual crystal approximation (VCA), that the magnetic ground state of Ce 3 Rh 4 Sn 13 is very sensitive to the Sn content.…”

Electronic structure and thermodynamic properties of Ce3Rh4Sn13and La3Rh4Sn13

“…A singlecrystal investigation revealed two successive magnetic phase transitions at T N1 = 2 K and T N2 = 1.2 K [10], while the very recent thermodynamic measurements performed on a polycrystalline sample point only to a short-range magnetic ordering at ≈1 K [11]. Furthermore, for the reference compound La 3 Rh 4 Sn 13 recent results revealed an intrinsic superconducting transition at 3.8 K [11], while other investigations pointed to superconductivity below 2.9 K [10] or 3.0-3.2 K [12]. Such a spread between superconducting transition temperatures as well as the contradictory reports for Ce 3 Rh 4 Sn 13 indicate that there is a strong sample dependence for both systems.…”

Kondo effect in the quasiskutteruditeYb3Os4Ge13

“…For example, both Ce 3 Co 4 Sn 13 and Ce 3 Rh 4 Sn 13 show heavy fermion behavior at low temperatures [17,18]. In these compounds, competition between magnetic orders and collective hybridization of localized f electrons with background conduction electrons may lead to a magnetic quantum phase transition at zero temperature.…”