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Heavy-fermion quantum criticality and destruction of the Kondo effect in a nickel oxypnictide

Abstract

A quantum critical point arises at a continuous transformation between distinct phases of matter at zero temperature. Studies in antiferromagnetic heavy-fermion materials have revealed that quantum criticality has several classes, with an unconventional type that involves a critical destruction of the Kondo entanglement1,2. To understand such varieties, it is important to extend the materials basis beyond the usual setting of intermetallic compounds. Here we show that a nickel oxypnictide, CeNiAsO, exhibits a heavy-fermion antiferromagnetic quantum critical point as a function of either pressure or P/As substitution. At the quantum critical point, non-Fermi-liquid behaviour appears, which is accompanied by a divergent effective carrier mass. Across the quantum critical point, the low-temperature Hall coefficient undergoes a rapid sign change, suggesting a sudden jump of the Fermi surface and a destruction of the Kondo effect3,4. Our results imply that the enormous materials basis for the oxypnictides, which has been so crucial in the search for high-temperature superconductivity, will also play a vital role in the effort to establish the universality classes of quantum criticality in strongly correlated electron systems.

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Figure 1: Resistivity versus temperature in CeNiAsO under different hydrostatic pressures.
Figure 2: Phase diagram of CeNiAsO under pressure.
Figure 3: Specific heat of CeNiAs1 − xPxO.
Figure 4: Magnetic property of P-doped CeNiAsO.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant Nos 2011CBA00103 and 2012CB927404), the National Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos 11190023, 11174247, 10934005 and 11274084), the NSF of Zhejiang Province (No. Z6110033), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China, the National Science Foundation under grant Nos DMR 0819860 and DMR-1309531, the Nano Electronics Research Corporation (Award 2010- NE-2010G), and the Robert A. Welch Foundation Grant No.C-1411. Y. Luo would like to acknowledge a scholarship from the China Scholarship Council (CSC-2010632081). The DMFT calculations were performed using the computational facilities of the Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC) under projects 003-11-1 and 001-11-125.

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Contributions

Y. Luo, N.P.O., Q.S. and Z.X. designed the research. Y. Luo synthesized the samples and performed most of the measurements. L.P. and A.G. carried out the first-principles calculations. N.P.O. and S.E.R. provided important equipment and took part in helpful discussions. S.E.R., C.F. and Y. Li performed some of the measurements. G.C., J.D., Y. Luo, L.P., Q.S. and Z.X. discussed the data, interpreted the results, and wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Zhu’an Xu.

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Luo, Y., Pourovskii, L., Rowley, S. et al. Heavy-fermion quantum criticality and destruction of the Kondo effect in a nickel oxypnictide. Nature Mater 13, 777–781 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3991

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