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

Nature Materials volume 13, pages 777–781 (2014)Cite this article

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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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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China

    Yongkang Luo, Chunmu Feng, Guanghan Cao & Zhu’an Xu

  2. Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA

    Yongkang Luo, S. E. Rowley & N. P. Ong

  3. Centre de Physique Théorique, École Polytechnique, CNRS, 91128 Palaiseau Cedex, France

    Leonid Pourovskii & Antoine Georges

  4. Department of Physics, Swedish e-science Research Centre (SeRC), Chemistry and Biology (IFM), Linköping University, Linköping 58183, Sweden

    Leonid Pourovskii

  5. Department of Physics, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou 310036, China

    Yuke Li & Jianhui Dai

  6. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA

    Qimiao Si

Authors
  1. Yongkang Luo
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  9. Zhu’an Xu
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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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