Possible devil's staircase in the Kondo lattice CeSbSe

Abstract

The temperature ($T$) - magnetic field ($H$) phase diagram for the tetragonal layered compound CeSbSe, is determined from magnetization, specific heat, and electrical resistivity measurements. This system exhibits complex magnetic ordering at $T_{\rm{M}}$ $=$ 3 K and the application of a magnetic field results in a cascade of magnetically ordered states for $H$ $\lesssim$ 1.8 T which are characterized by fractional integer size steps: i.e., a possible Devil's staircase is observed. Electrical transport measurements show a weak temperature dependence and large residual resistivity which suggest a small charge carrier density and strong scattering from the $f$-moments. These features reveal Kondo lattice behavior where the $f$-moments are incompletely screened, resulting in a fine balanced magnetic interaction between different Ce neighbors that is mediated by the RKKY interaction. This produces the nearly degenerate magnetically ordered states that are accessed under an applied magnetic field

Tunable Weyl and Dirac states in the nonsymmorphic compound CeSbTe

“…A possible explanation for this behavior is a strong magnetic anisotropy of the Ce moments. Similar field-dependent magnetic transitions have also been observed in different square lattice Ce compounds, such as CeTe 2 or CeSbSe ( 31 , 32 ). Moreover, other magnetic square lattice compounds, such as CsCo 2 Se 2 , can show a field-induced magnetic transition ( 33 ).…”

Evolving Devil's staircase magnetization from tunable charge density waves in nonsymmorphic Dirac semimetals

“…Quantized magnetization plateaus have been previously observed in low-dimensional magnets [42,43] and magnetically frustrated systems [44,45], forming a structure called "Devil's staircase" as each step consists of infinite number of steps under magnification, and so forth [46]. We note that such complex magnetic structure has also been reported in CeSbSe with a tetragonal structure [47]. Analogous to the FQHE, a devil's staircase originates from an energy gap in the many body excitation spectra in a compound due to the translational symmetry breaking [48][49][50][51].…”

Magnetic and electronic properties of a topological nodal line semimetal candidate: HoSbTe

“…Spin-flop transitions and magnetic anisotropy were also reported in similar compounds CeSbSe, CeSbTe and GdSbTe [37,24,25]. The specific heat capacity (CP) of HoSbTe with zero applied magnetic field was shown in Fig.…”