Seminars

Low temperature properties of the intermediate valence compound SmB6

by Karol Flachbart, Institute of Experimental Physics, Kosice, Slovakia

Europe/Berlin
Bldg. 25b, room 109

Bldg. 25b, room 109

Description
The problem of intermediate valence in some rare earth compounds has attracted considerable attention in last few decades. One of the most typical representatives of this class of materials is samarium hexaboride (SmB6) in which at ambient conditions fast charge fluctuations in the vicinity of Sm-sites mix divalent and trivalent states of these ions. The semiconducting properties of this strongly correlated system seem to be conditioned by hybridization between localized f-states and itinerant states, which results in a narrow energy and spin gap of about 19 meV at the Fermi level. Samarium hexaborides is therefore often considered as a heavy-fermion semiconductor, often denoted also as Kondo insulator. In the talk we will present results of recent investigations on this compound and make suggestions for some potential investigations in collaboration with the HASYLAB.