Quasi-two-dimensional Fermi surfaces of the antiferromagnet U$_2$RhIn$_8$ revealed by de Haas-van Alphen measurements

TL;DR

This study investigates the Fermi surface topology of U$_2$RhIn$_8$ using de Haas-van Alphen measurements, revealing nearly two-dimensional Fermi surfaces and effective masses up to 14 times the electron mass, with theoretical calculations supporting the experimental findings.

Contribution

First experimental observation of quasi-two-dimensional Fermi surfaces in U$_2$RhIn$_8$ using dHvA measurements, complemented by band-structure calculations for different magnetic states.

Findings

Identification of three nearly two-dimensional Fermi surfaces.

Effective masses ranging from 2m_0 to 14m_0.

Band calculations show better agreement with antiferromagnetic state.

Abstract

We report temperature-dependent Hall effect and low-temperature de Haas-van Alphen (dHvA) effect measurements of the antiferromagnetic heavy-fermion compound U$_2$RhIn$_8$. Temperature dependence of the Hall resistivity suggests a considerable reduction of the carrier density in the antiferromagnetic phase. The observed angular dependence of the dHvA frequencies suggests the existence of three almost ideally two-dimensional Fermi surfaces one of which is quite large. The measured effective masses range from 2$m_0$ to 14$m_0$ for the field applied along the $c$ axis. Local density approximation band-structure calculations performed for the paramagnetic ground state reveal more three-dimensional Fermi surfaces than those observed in the experiment. On the other hand, Fermi surfaces obtained for the antiferromagnetic ground state by band folding are more two dimensional. These calculations account reasonably well for the experimental results assuming a slight modification of the calculated Fermi surfaces.