Temperature-field phase diagram of geometrically frustrated CePdAl

Abstract

From the electrical resistivity and ac susceptibility measurements down to $T$ = 40 mK, a rich temperature-field phase diagram has been constructed for the geometrically frustrated heavy-fermion compound CePdAl. In the limit of zero temperature, the field-induced suppression of the antiferromagnetism in this compound results in a sequence of phase transitions/corssovers, rather than a single critical point, in a critical region of field 3$-$5 T. In the lowest temperature region, a power-law description of the temperature-dependent resistivity yields $A$$\cdot$$T^n$ with $n$$>$2 for all applied fields. However, a quadratic-in-temperature resistivity term can be extracted when assuming an additional electron scattering channel from magnon-like excitations, with $A$ diverging upon approaching the critical regime. Our observations suggest CePdAl to be a new playground for exotic physics arising from the competition between Kondo screening and geometrical frustration.

5 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Quantum Criticality in Heavy Fermion Metals
• Frustration and the Kondo effect in heavy fermion materials
• Characteristic signatures of quantum criticality driven by geometrical frustration
• High-field metamagnetism in the antiferromagnet CeRh${}_2$Si${}_2$
• Field-induced non-Fermi-liquid resistivity of stoichiometric YbAgGe single crystals

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Entropy evolution in the magnetic phases of partially frustrated CePdAl
• Semimetallic Kondo lattice behavior in YbPdAs with a distorted kagome structure
• Thermodynamic Investigation of Metamagnetic Transitions and Partial Disorder in the Quasi-Kagome Kondo Lattice CePdAl
• Evolution of the partially frustrated magnetic order in CePd${}_{1-x}$Ni${}_x$Al