Evolution of the Kondo lattice and non-Fermi liquid excitations in a heavy-fermion metal

S. Seiro, L. Jiao, S. Kirchner, S. Hartmann, S. Friedemann, C. Krellner, C. Geibel, Q. Si, F. Steglich, S. Wirth*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

31 Citations (Scopus)
338 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Strong electron correlations can give rise to extraordinary properties of metals with renormalized Landau quasiparticles. Near a quantum critical point, these quasiparticles can be destroyed and non-Fermi liquid behavior ensues. YbRh2Si2 is a prototypical correlated metal exhibiting the formation of quasiparticle and Kondo lattice coherence, as well as quasiparticle destruction at a field-induced quantum critical point. Here we show how, upon lowering the temperature, Kondo lattice coherence develops at zero field and finally gives way to non-Fermi liquid electronic excitations. By measuring the single-particle excitations through scanning tunneling spectroscopy, we find the Kondo lattice peak displays a non-trivial temperature dependence with a strong increase around 3.3 K. At 0.3 K and with applied magnetic field, the width of this peak is minimized in the quantum critical regime. Our results demonstrate that the lattice Kondo correlations have to be sufficiently developed before quantum criticality can set in.

Original languageEnglish
Article number3324
Number of pages7
JournalNature Communications
Volume9
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 20 Aug 2018

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