Dualism of the 4 f electrons and its relation to high-temperature antiferromagnetism in the heavy-fermion compound YbCoC 2

D. A Salamatin (1, 2) , N. Martin (3, 4) , V. A Sidorov (1) , N. Chtchelkatchev (1, 5) , M. V Magnitskaya (1, 6) , A. E Petrova (1, 6) , I. P Zibrov (1) , L. N Fomicheva (1) , Jing Guo (7) , Cheng Huang (7) , Liling Sun (7) , A. V Tsvyashchenko (1)

1 HPPI - Institute for High Pressure Physics of the RAS
2 JINR - Joint Institute for Nuclear Research
3 LLB - UMR 12 - Laboratoire Léon Brillouin
4 NFMQ - LLB - Nouvelles frontières dans les matériaux quantiques
5 UrFU - Ural Federal University [Ekaterinburg]
6 LPI RAS - P. N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences [Moscow]
7 UCAS - University of Chinese Academy of Sciences [Beijing]

We report on the study of the noncentrosymmetric ternary carbide YbCoC 2. Our magnetization, specific heat, resistivity, and neutron diffraction measurements consistently show that the system behaves as a heavy-fermion compound, displaying an amplitude-modulated magnetic structure below the Néel temperature reaching T N = 33 K under pressure. Such a large value, being the highest among the Yb-based systems, is explained in the light of our ab initio calculations, which show that the 4 f electronic states of Yb have a dual nature, i.e., due to their strong hybridization with the 3d states of Co, 4 f states expose both localized and itinerant properties.

Domaines: Physique [physics]; Matière Condensée [cond-mat]; Electrons fortement corrélés [cond-mat.str-el]

D. A Salamatin, N. Martin, V. A Sidorov, N. Chtchelkatchev, M. V Magnitskaya, et al.. Dualism of the 4 f electrons and its relation to high-temperature antiferromagnetism in the heavy-fermion compound YbCoC 2. Physical Review B: Condensed Matter and Materials Physics (1998-2015), 2020, 101 (10), ⟨10.1103/PhysRevB.101.100406⟩. ⟨hal-02511887⟩