Anomalous Metamagnetism in the Low Carrier Density Kondo Lattice YbRh3Si7

Binod K Rai; S Chikara; Xiaxin Ding; Iain W H Oswald; R Schönemann; V Loganathan; A M Hallas; H B Cao; Macy Stavinoha; T Chen; Haoran Man; Scott Carr; John Singleton; Vivien Zapf; Katherine A Benavides; Julia Y Chan; Q R Zhang; D Rhodes; Y C Chiu; Luis Balicas; A A Aczel; Q Huang; Jeffrey W Lynn; J Gaudet; D A Sokolov; H C Walker; D T Adroja; Pengcheng Dai; Andriy H Nevidomskyy; C-L Huang; E Morosan

doi:10.1103/PhysRevX.8.041047

Anomalous Metamagnetism in the Low Carrier Density Kondo Lattice YbRh₃Si₇

Phys Rev X. 2018;8(4):10.1103/PhysRevX.8.041047. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevX.8.041047.

Authors

Binod K Rai¹, S Chikara², Xiaxin Ding², Iain W H Oswald³, R Schönemann⁴, V Loganathan¹, A M Hallas¹, H B Cao⁵, Macy Stavinoha⁶, T Chen¹, Haoran Man¹, Scott Carr¹, John Singleton², Vivien Zapf², Katherine A Benavides³, Julia Y Chan³, Q R Zhang⁴, D Rhodes⁴, Y C Chiu⁴, Luis Balicas⁴, A A Aczel⁵, Q Huang⁷, Jeffrey W Lynn⁷, J Gaudet⁸, D A Sokolov⁹, H C Walker¹⁰, D T Adroja¹⁰, Pengcheng Dai¹, Andriy H Nevidomskyy¹, C-L Huang¹, E Morosan¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA.
² National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Materials Physics and Applications Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA.
³ Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, Texas 75080, USA.
⁴ National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32310, USA.
⁵ Neutron Scattering Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, USA.
⁶ Department of Chemistry, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA.
⁷ NIST Center for Neutron Research, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, USA.
⁸ Department of Physics and Astronomy, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4M1, Canada.
⁹ Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, Dresden, 01187 Germany.
¹⁰ ISIS Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Harwell Campus, Didcot, OX11 0QX, United Kingdom.

Abstract

We report complex metamagnetic transitions in single crystals of the new low carrier Kondo antiferromagnet ${YbRh}_{3} {Si}_{7}$ . Electrical transport, magnetization, and specific heat measurements reveal antiferromagnetic order at $T_{N} = 7.5 K$ . Neutron diffraction measurements show that the magnetic ground state of ${YbRh}_{3} {Si}_{7}$ is a collinear antiferromagnet, where the moments are aligned in the ab plane. With such an ordered state, no metamagnetic transitions are expected when a magnetic field is applied along the $c$ axis. It is therefore surprising that high-field magnetization, torque, and resistivity measurements with $H ‖ c$ reveal two metamagnetic transitions at $μ_{0} H_{1} = 6.7 T$ and $μ_{0} H_{2} = 21 T$ . When the field is tilted away from the $c$ axis, towards the ab plane, both metamagnetic transitions are shifted to higher fields. The first metamagnetic transition leads to an abrupt increase in the electrical resistivity, while the second transition is accompanied by a dramatic reduction in the electrical resistivity. Thus, the magnetic and electronic degrees of freedom in ${YbRh}_{3} {Si}_{7}$ are strongly coupled. We discuss the origin of the anomalous metamagnetism and conclude that it is related to competition between crystal electric-field anisotropy and anisotropic exchange interactions.

Keywords: Condensed Matter Physics; Magnetism; Strongly Correlated Materials.

Grants and funding

9999-NIST/ImNIST/Intramural NIST DOC/United States