Anomalous Transport Properties of Re${}_3$Ge${}_7$

Abstract

Single crystals of intermetallic Re${}_3$Ge${}_7$ were grown and characterized by measuring magnetization, electrical resistivity, Hall coefficient, and specific heat. Magnetization measurements show the material is weakly diamagnetic. A phase transition is indicated by a kink in magnetic susceptibility at $T_c=58.5$K and is confirmed by a $\lambda$-like anomaly in specific heat. In zero-field, the temperature dependence of electrical resistivity $\rho (T)$ follows a typical metallic behavior above $T_c$ and sharply increases below $T_c$, showing a metal-to-insulator-like transition. When a magnetic field is applied, strong effects on the transport properties are observed. The temperature dependence of magnetoresistivity $\Delta \rho$ = $\rho (T,H)$ - $\rho (T,H=0)$ develops a maximum around 30 K, deviating from ordinary metallic behavior. Analysis of the Hall coefficient measurements indicates that the carrier density is 0.04 per formula unit at 300 K and drops by two orders of magnitude below $T_c$. The effective mass of charge carriers is inferred from the analysis of the Shubnikov-de Haas quantum oscillations to be close to the bare electron mass.

7 pages, 8 figures, published in PRM

References in corpus (2)

• Mott Insulators in the Strong Spin-Orbit Coupling Limit: From Heisenberg to a Quantum Compass and Kitaev Models
• Novel Jeff = 1/2 Mott State Induced by Relativistic Spin-Orbit Coupling in Sr2IrO4

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Metal-insulator-like transition, superconducting dome and topological electronic structure in Ga-doped Re${}_3$Ge${}_7$