The Kondo Resonance in Electron Spectroscopy

The nature of the elemental cerium phases, undergoing an isostructural volume collapse transition, cannot be understood using conventional solid state concepts. Using the combination of density functional theory and dynamical mean-field theory, we study the magnetic properties of both the $\alpha$ and the $\gamma$ phases. We compute the magnetic form factor, and show that it is very close to free ion behavior in both the local moment $\gamma$ phase as well as the more itinera...

The Kondo resonance at the Fermi level is well-established for the electronic structure of Ce (f1 electron) and Yb (f1 hole) based systems. In this work, we report complementary experimental and theoretical studies on the Kondo resonance in Pr-based f2 system, PrTi2Al20. Using Pr 3d-4f resonant photoemission spectroscopy and single impurity Anderson model (SIAM) calculations including the full multiplets of Pr ions, we show that an f2 system can also give rise to a Kondo reso...

The three-dimensional electronic structure and the nature of Ce 4f electrons of the Kondo insulator CeRu4Sn6 are investigated by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, utilizing tunable photon energies. Our results reveal (i) the three-dimensional k-space nature of the Fermi surface, (ii) the localized-to-itinerant transition of f electrons occurs at a much high temperature than the hybridization gap opening temperature, and (iii) the "relocalization" of itinerant f elect...

The physical mechanism driving the $\gamma$-$\alpha$ phase transition of face-centre-cubic (fcc) cerium (Ce) remains controversial until now. In this work, high quality single crystalline fcc-Ce thin films were grown on Graphene/6$H$-SiC(0001) substrate, and explored by XRD and ARPES measurement. XRD spectra showed a clear $\gamma$-$\alpha$ phase transition at $T_{\gamma-\alpha}\approx$ 50 K, which is retarded by strain effect from substrate comparing with $T_{\gamma-\alpha}$...

The elucidation of Landau Fermi liquid quasi-particles and their absence in strongly correlated electron systems lies at the heart of modern research on the quantum mechanics of electrons in condensed matter. Photoemission spectroscopy of the single particle spectral function is a central experimental tool for such studies. A general paradigm of quasi-particle formation is the Fermi level resonance associated with the Kondo physics of the Anderson impurity model, an effective...

We have measured Ce 4f spectral weights of extremely $\alpha$-like Ce-transition metal intermetallic compounds CeRh$_x$ (x=2,3) and CeNi$_x$ (x=2,5) by using the {\it bulk-sensitive} resonant photoemission technique at the Ce $M_5$($3d_{5/2}\to4f$)-edge. Unprecedentedly high energy resolution and longer escape depth of photoemitted electron at this photon energy enabled us to distinguish the sharp Kondo resonance tails at the Fermi level, which can be well described by the Gu...

Kondo systems are usually described by the interaction of strong correlation induced local moment with the highly itinerant conduction electrons. Here, we study the role of electron correlations among conduction electrons in the electronic structure of a Kondo lattice compound, Ce$_2$CoSi$_3$, using high resolution photoemission spectroscopy and {\it ab initio} band structure calculations, where Co 3$d$ electrons contribute in the conduction band. High energy resolution emplo...

We show the three-dimensional electronic structure of the Kondo lattice CeIn3 using soft x-ray angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy in the paramagnetic state. For the first time, we have directly observed the three-dimensional topology of the Fermi surface of CeIn3 by photoemission. The Fermi surface has a complicated hole pocket centred at the {\Gamma}-Z line and an elliptical electron pocket centred at the R point of the Brillouin zone. Polarization and photon-energy d...

The band calculation scheme for $f$ electron compounds is developed on the basis of the dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) and the LMTO method. The auxiliary impurity problem is solved by a method named as NCA$f^{2}$v', which includes the correct exchange process of the $f^{1} \to f^{2}$ virtual excitation as the vertex correction to the non-crossing approximation (NCA) for the $f^{1} \to f^{0}$ fluctuation. This method leads to the correct magnitude of the Kondo temperature,...

Analyzing temperature dependent photoemission (PE) data of the ferromagnetic Kondo-lattice (KL) system YbNiSn in the light of the Periodic Anderson model (PAM) we show that the KL behavior is not limited to temperatures below a temperature T_K, defined empirically from resistivity and specificic heat measurements. As characteristic for weakly hybridized Ce and Yb systems, the PE spectra reveal a 4f-derived Fermi level peak, which reflects contributions from the Kondo resonanc...