Strong suppression of superconductivity by divalent Ytterbium Kondo-holes in CeCoIn_5

Abstract

To study the nature of partially substituted Yb-ions in a Ce-based Kondo lattice, we fabricated high quality Ce_{1-x}Yb_xCoIn_5 epitaxial thin films using molecular beam epitaxy. We find that the Yb-substitution leads to a linear decrease of the unit cell volume, indicating that Yb-ions are divalent forming Kondo-holes in Ce_{1-x}Yb_xCoIn_5, and leads to a strong suppression of the superconductivity and Kondo coherence. These results, combined with the measurements of Hall effect, indicate that Yb-ions act as nonmagnetic impurity scatters in the coherent Kondo lattice without serious suppression of the antiferromagnetic fluctuations. These are in stark contrast to previous studies performed using bulk single crystals, which claim the importance of valence fluctuations of Yb-ions. The present work also highlights the suitability of epitaxial films in the study of the impurity effect on the Kondo lattice.

5 pages, 4 figures

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• Spin resonance in the d-wave superconductor CeCoIn5
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• Extremely strong coupling superconductivity in artificial two-dimensional Kondo lattices
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• Magneto-transport properties governed by the antiferromagnetic fluctuations in heavy fermion superconductor CeIrIn${}_5$
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Cited by in corpus (14)

• Controllable Rashba spin-orbit interaction in artificially engineered superlattices involving the heavy-fermion superconductor CeCoIn5
• Evolution of the superconducting energy gap structure concomitant with Fermi surface reconstruction in the heavy-fermion superconductor CeCoIn5
• Yb Valence Change in (Ce,Yb)CoIn5 from spectroscopy and bulk properties
• In Situ STM Observation of Nonmagnetic Impurity Effect in MBE-grown CeCoIn${}_5$ Films
• Resolution of the discrepancy between the variation of the physical properties of Ce1-xYbxCoIn5 single crystals and thin films with Yb composition
• Terahertz Conductivity of the Heavy-Fermion State in CeCoIn5
• Quantum well states in fractured crystals of the heavy fermion material CeCoIn${}_5$
• Spectral changes in layered $f$-electron systems induced by Kondo hole substitution in the boundary-layer
• Universal Heat Conduction in Ce1-xYbxCoIn5: Evidence for Robust Nodal d-wave Superconducting Gap
• A Review of Electronic Transport in Superconducting Sr${}_2$RuO${}_4$ Junctions
• Kondo holes in strongly correlated impurity arrays: RKKY driven Kondo screening and hole-hole interactions
• Renormalizations in unconventional superconducting states of Ce${}_{1-x}$Yb${}_x$CoIn${}_5$
• Charge Carrier Dynamics of the Heavy Fermion Metal CeCoIn${}_5$ Probed by THz Spectroscopy
• Magnetic and superconducting properties of the heavy-fermion CeCoIn5 epitaxial film probed by nuclear quadrupole resonance