A de Haas van Alphen study of the role of 4f electrons in antiferromagnetic CeZn11 as compared to its non-magnetic analogue LaZn11

TL;DR

This study uses de Haas-van Alphen measurements and DFT calculations to compare the Fermi surfaces of antiferromagnetic CeZn11 and non-magnetic LaZn11, revealing the localized nature of 4f electrons in CeZn11 and their role in magnetic ordering.

Contribution

It provides detailed experimental and theoretical analysis showing that CeZn11's 4f electrons are localized and minimally affect the Fermi surface, contrasting with prior assumptions about their itinerancy.

Findings

Fermi surfaces of CeZn11 and LaZn11 are similar, dominated by Zn 3d states.

CeZn11 exhibits larger effective masses, indicating stronger correlations.

DFT+U with U=1.5 eV matches experimental data well.

Abstract

We present a de Haas-van Alphen study of the Fermi surface of the low temperature antiferromagnet CeZn11 and its non-magnetic analogue LaZn11, measured by torque magnetometry up to fields of 33T and at temperatures down to 320 mK. Both systems possess similar de Haas-van Alphen frequencies, with three clear sets of features - ranging from 50T to 4kT - corresponding to three bands of a complex Fermi surface, with an expected fourth band also seen weakly in CeZn11. The effective masses of the charge carriers are very light (<1 me) in LaZn11 but a factor of 2 - 4 larger in CeZn11, indicative of stronger electronic correlations. We perform detailed density functional theory (DFT) calculations for CeZn11 and find that only DFT+U calculations with U=1.5 eV, which localize the 4f states, provide a good match to the measured de Haas-van Alphen frequencies, once the presence of magnetic breakdown orbits is also considered. Our study suggests that the Fermi surface of CeZn11 is very close to that of LaZn11 being dominated by Zn 3d, as the Ce 4f states are localised and have little influence on its electronic structure, however, they are responsible for its magnetic order and contribute to enhance electronic correlations.