Anisotropic transport and magnetic properties, and magnetic-field tuned states of CeZn11 single crystals

TL;DR

This study investigates the magnetic, transport, and thermoelectric properties of CeZn11 single crystals, revealing antiferromagnetic order, Kondo lattice effects, and field-tuned quantum states, with high-quality crystals enabling quantum oscillation observations.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of CeZn11's magnetic and electronic behavior, including the construction of a detailed magnetic field-temperature phase diagram and quantum oscillation data.

Findings

CeZn11 orders antiferromagnetically at ~2 K.

Field suppresses T_N below 0.4 K at 45-47.5 kOe.

Quantum oscillations observed in high-quality crystals.

Abstract

We present detailed temperature and field dependent data obtained from magnetization, resistivity, heat capacity, Hall resistivity and thermoelectric power measurements performed on single crystals of CeZn11. The compounds orders antiferromagnetically at $\sim$ 2 K. The zero-field resistivity and TEP data show features characteristic of a Ce-based intermetallic with crystal electric field splitting and possible correlated, Kondo lattice effects. We constructed the T-H phase diagram for the magnetic field applied along the easy, [110], direction which shows that the magnetic field required to suppress T_N below 0.4 K is in the range of 45-47.5 kOe. A linear behavior of the rho(T) data, H||[110], was observed only for H=45 kOe for 0.46 K<T<1.96 K followed by the Landau-Fermi-liquid regime for a limited range of fields, 47.5 kOe< H<60 kOe. From the analysis of our data, it appears that CeZn11 is a weakly to moderately correlated local moment compound with rather small Kondo temperature. The thermoelectric and transport properties of CeZn11 are mostly governed by the CEF effects. Given the very high quality of our single crystals, quantum oscillations are found for both CeZn11 and its non-magnetic analogue, LaZn11.