Letter abstract
Nature Physics 3, 703 - 706 (2007)
Published online: 9 September 2007 | doi:10.1038/nphys711
Subject Categories: Condensed-matter physics | Quantum physics
Incoherent non-Fermi-liquid scattering in a Kondo lattice
Johnpierre Paglione, T. A. Sayles, P.-C. Ho, J. R. Jeffries & M. B. Maple
One of the most notorious non-Fermi-liquid properties of both archetypal heavy-fermion systems1, 2, 3, 4 and the high-Tc copper oxide superconductors5 is an electrical resistivity that evolves linearly (rather than quadratically) with temperature, T. In the heavy-fermion superconductor CeCoIn5 (ref. 6), this linear behaviour was one of the first indications of the presence of a zero-temperature instability, or quantum critical point. Here, we report the observation of a unique control parameter of T-linear scattering in CeCoIn5, found through systematic chemical substitutions of both magnetic and non-magnetic rare-earth, R, ions into the Ce sublattice. We find that the evolution of inelastic scattering in Ce1-xRxCoIn5 is strongly dependent on the f-electron configuration of the R ion, whereas two other key properties—Cooper-pair breaking and Kondo-lattice coherence—are not. Thus, T-linear resistivity in CeCoIn5 is intimately related to the nature of incoherent scattering centres in the Kondo lattice, which provides insight into the anomalous scattering rate synonymous with quantum criticality7.
- Department of Physics, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, USA
Correspondence to: Johnpierre Paglione e-mail: paglione@physics.ucsd.edu
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