Anomalous Metamagnetism in the Low Carrier Density Kondo Lattice YbRh 3 Si 7

• Published in: Physical review. X Vol. 8; no. 4
• Main Authors: Rai, Binod K, Chikara, S, Ding, Xiaxin, Oswald, Iain W H, Schönemann, R, Loganathan, V, Hallas, A M, Cao, H B, Stavinoha, Macy, Chen, T, Man, Haoran, Carr, Scott, Singleton, John, Zapf, Vivien, Benavides, Katherine A, Chan, Julia Y, Zhang, Q R, Rhodes, D, Chiu, Y C, Balicas, Luis, Aczel, A A, Huang, Q, Lynn, Jeffrey W, Gaudet, J, Sokolov, D A, Walker, H C, Adroja, D T, Dai, Pengcheng, Nevidomskyy, Andriy H, Huang, C-L, Morosan, E
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Physical Society 13-12-2018
• Subjects: CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS; High Magnetic Field Science; Condensed Matter Physics; Magnetism; Strongly Correlated Materials
• ISSN: 2160-3308; 2160-3308
• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevX.8.041047

We report complex metamagnetic transitions in single crystals of the new low carrier Kondo antiferromagnet
. Electrical transport, magnetization, and specific heat measurements reveal antiferromagnetic order at
. Neutron diffraction measurements show that the magnetic ground state of
is a collinear antiferromagnet, where the moments are aligned in the
plane. With such an ordered state, no metamagnetic transitions are expected when a magnetic field is applied along the
axis. It is therefore surprising that high-field magnetization, torque, and resistivity measurements with
reveal two metamagnetic transitions at
and
. When the field is tilted away from the
axis, towards the
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
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.