Electronic inhomogeneity in a Kondo lattice

Abstract

Inhomogeneous electronic states resulting from entangled spin, charge, and lattice degrees of freedom are hallmarks of strongly correlated electron materials; such behavior has been observed in many classes of d-electron materials, including the high-Tc copper-oxide superconductors, manganites, and most recently the iron-pnictide superconductors. The complexity generated by competing phases in these materials constitutes a considerable theoretical challenge-one that still defies a complete description. Here, we report a new manifestation of electronic inhomogeneity in a strongly correlated f-electron system, using CeCoIn5 as an example. A thermodynamic analysis of its superconductivity, combined with nuclear quadrupole resonance measurements, shows that nonmagnetic impurities (Y, La, Yb, Th, Hg and Sn) locally suppress unconventional superconductivity, generating an inhomogeneous electronic "Swiss cheese" due to disrupted periodicity of the Kondo lattice. Our analysis may be generalized to include related systems, suggesting that electronic inhomogeneity should be considered broadly in Kondo lattice materials.

arXiv comment27 pages

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Cited by in corpus (21)

• Disorder in a Quantum Critical Superconductor
• How Kondo Holes Create Intense Nanoscale Heavy-Fermion Hybridization Disorder
• Electronic tuning and uniform superconductivity in CeCoIn5
• Non-Fermi liquid behavior with and without quantum criticality in Ce(1-x)Yb(x)CoIn(5)
• Composite pairing in a mixed valent two channel Anderson model
• Yb Valence Change in (Ce,Yb)CoIn5 from spectroscopy and bulk properties
• From Ising resonant fluctuations to static uniaxial order in antiferromagnetic and weakly superconducting CeCo(In${}_{1-x}$Hg${}_x$)${}_5$ ($x$=0.01)
• Strong suppression of superconductivity by divalent Ytterbium Kondo-holes in CeCoIn_5
• In Situ STM Observation of Nonmagnetic Impurity Effect in MBE-grown CeCoIn${}_5$ Films
• Magnetic inhomogeneity on a triangular lattice: the magnetic-exchange versus the elastic energy and the role of disorder
• Local suppression of the superfluid density of PuCoGa${}_5$ in the Swiss Cheese model
• Competing magnetic orders in the superconducting state of Nd-doped CeRhIn${}_5$ under pressure
• Pauli-limited superconductivity and antiferromagnetism in the heavy-fermion compound CeCo(In1-xZnx)5
• Orbitally defined field-induced electronic state in a Kondo lattice
• Symplectic large-N theory of topological heavy-fermion semiconductors
• Correlated disorder in Kondo lattice
• Universal Heat Conduction in Ce1-xYbxCoIn5: Evidence for Robust Nodal d-wave Superconducting Gap
• Unusual Kondo-hole effect and crystal-field frustration in Nd-doped CeRhIn${}_5$
• An emerging global picture of heavy fermion physics
• Enhancement of Charge Density Wave Correlations in a Holstein Model with an Anharmonic Phonon Potential
• Site Specific Knight Shift Measurements of the Dilute Kondo lattice System Ce${}_{1-x}$La${}_x$CoIn${}_5$