Crossover from Kondo semiconductor to metallic antiferromagnet with 5d -electron doping in CeFe2Al10

Rajesh Tripathi, D. T. Adroja, M. R. Lees, A. Sundaresan, S. Langridge, A. Bhattacharyya, V. K. Anand, D. D. Khalyavin, J. Sannigrahi, G. Cibin, A. D. Hillier, R. I. Smith (+3 others)
2021 Physical review B  
We report a systematic study of the 5d-electron-doped system Ce(Fe 1−x Ir x ) 2 Al 10 (0 x 0.15). With increasing x, the orthorhombic b axis decreases slightly while accompanying changes in a and c leave the unit cell volume almost unchanged. Inelastic neutron scattering, along with thermal and transport measurements, reveal that for the Kondo semiconductor CeFe 2 Al 10 , the low-temperature energy gap, which is proposed to be a consequence of strong c-f hybridization, is suppressed by a small
more » ... mount of Ir substitution for Fe and that the system adopts a metallic ground state with an increase in the density of states at the Fermi level. The charge or transport gap collapses (at x = 0.04) faster than the spin gap with Ir substitution. Magnetic susceptibility, heat capacity, and muon spin relaxation measurements demonstrate that the system undergoes long-range antiferromagnetic order below a Néel temperature T N of 3.1(2) K for x = 0.15. The ordered moment is estimated to be smaller than 0.07(1) μ B /Ce, although the trivalent state of Ce is confirmed by Ce L 3 -edge x-ray absorption near edge spectroscopy. It is suggested that the c-f hybridization gap, which plays an important role in the unusually high ordering temperatures observed in CeT 2 Al 10 (T = Ru and Os), may not be necessary for the onset of magnetic order with a low T N seen here in Ce(Fe 1−x Ir x ) 2 Al 10 .
doi:10.1103/physrevb.104.144405 fatcat:zdaswesxrzdk5cqdw7duhz5g7y