Field-dependent heat transport in the Kondo insulator SmB6 : phonons scattered by magnetic impurities

Abstract

The thermal conductivity $\kappa$ of the Kondo insulator SmB${}_6$ was measured at low temperature, down to 70 mK, in magnetic fields up to 15 T, on single crystals grown using both the floating-zone and the flux methods. The residual linear term ${\kappa }_0/T$ at $T\to 0$ is found to be zero in all samples, for all magnetic fields, in agreement with previous studies. There is therefore no clear evidence of fermionic heat carriers. In contrast to some prior data, we observe a large enhancement of $\kappa (T)$ with increasing field. The effect of field is anisotropic, depending on the relative orientation of field and heat current (parallel or perpendicular), and with respect to the cubic crystal structure. We interpret our data in terms of heat transport predominantly by phonons, which are scattered by magnetic impurities.

arXiv commentpublish version

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Cited by in corpus (16)

• Mixed-valence insulators with neutral Fermi surfaces
• Unconventional thermal metallic state of charge-neutral fermions in an insulator
• Robustness of the Insulating Bulk in the Topological Kondo Insulator SmB${}_6$
• Unusual high-field metal in a Kondo insulator
• Anomalous Conductance Oscillations in the Hybridization Gap of InAs/GaSb Quantum Wells
• Spin-liquid insulators can be Landau's Fermi liquids
• Intrinsic bulk quantum oscillations in a bulk unconventional insulator SmB${}_6$
• Hall anomaly, Quantum Oscillations and Possible Lifshitz Transitions in Kondo Insulator YbB${}_{12}$: Evidence for Unconventional Charge Transport
• Magnetic impurities in Kondo insulators: An application to samarium hexaboride
• Diamagnetic Sm${}^{3+}$ in the topological Kondo insulator SmB${}_6$
• Intrinsic Low-Temperature Magnetism in SmB6
• Heat conduction in herbertsmithite: field dependence at the onset of the quantum spin liquid regime
• Fragility of the Kondo insulating gap against disorder: relevance to recent puzzles in topological Kondo insulators
• Bulk transport paths through defects in floating zone and Al flux grown SmB${}_6$
• Charge neutral fermions and magnetic field driven instability in insulating YbIr${}_3$Si${}_7$
• Electronic correlations and topology in Kondo insulator PuB${}_6$