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Fermi surface in the absence of a Fermi liquid in the Kondo insulator SmB6

Journal Article · · Nature Physics
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys4295· OSTI ID:1441312
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  1. Univ. of Cambridge (United Kingdom). Cavendish Lab.
  2. Univ. of Waterloo, ON (Canada). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
  3. National High Magnetic Field Lab. (MagLab), Tallahassee, FL (United States)
  4. Univ. of Warwick, Coventry (United Kingdom). Dept. of Physics
  5. Univ. of Tokyo, Kashiwa (Japan). Inst. for Solid State Physics
  6. Univ. of Florida, Gainesville, FL (United States). Dept. of Physics
  7. Univ. of Cambridge (United Kingdom). Cavendish Lab.; Univ. of Oxford (United Kingdom). Dept. of Physics
  8. Univ. of Cambridge (United Kingdom). Cavendish Lab.; Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States). Dept. of Physics
  9. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  10. Osaka Univ., Toyonaka (Japan). Dept. of Chemistry
  11. National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kiev (Ukraine)
+ Show Author Affiliations

The search for a Fermi surface in the absence of a conventional Fermi liquid has thus far yielded very few potential candidates. Among promising materials are spin-frustrated Mott insulators near the insulator–metal transition, where theory predicts a Fermi surface associated with neutral low-energy excitations. In this paper, we reveal another route to experimentally realize a Fermi surface in the absence of a Fermi liquid by the experimental study of a Kondo insulator SmB6 positioned close to the insulator–metal transition. We present experimental signatures down to low temperatures (<<1 K) associated with a Fermi surface in the bulk, including a sizeable linear specific heat coefficient, and on the application of a finite magnetic field, bulk magnetic quantum oscillations, finite quantum oscillatory entropy, and substantial enhancement in thermal conductivity well below the charge gap energy scale. Finally, the weight of evidence indicates that despite an extreme instance of Fermi liquid breakdown in Kondo insulating SmB6, a Fermi surface arises from novel itinerant low-energy excitations that couple to magnetic fields, but not weak DC electric fields.

Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); National High Magnetic Field Lab. (MagLab), Tallahassee, FL (United States); Univ. of Cambridge (United Kingdom); Univ. of Warwick, Coventry (United Kingdom); Univ. of Waterloo, ON (Canada); Univ. of Tokyo, Kashiwa (Japan); Osaka Univ., Toyonaka (Japan)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); National Science Foundation (NSF) (United States); Royal Society (United Kingdom); Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) (United Kingdom); European Research Council (ERC); Leverhulme Trust (United Kingdom); Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC); Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) (Japan)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-06NA25396; SC0002613
OSTI ID:
1441312
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1764961
Report Number(s):
LA-UR--17-29404
Journal Information:
Nature Physics, Journal Name: Nature Physics Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 14; ISSN 1745-2473
Publisher:
Nature Publishing Group (NPG)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Cited By (23)

Mixed-valence insulators with neutral Fermi surfaces journal May 2018
Ground state anomalies in SmB6 journal January 2020
Raman spectroscopic evidence of impurity‐induced structural distortion in SmB 6 journal July 2019
Investigation of High-Temperature Bulk Transport Characteristics and Skew Scattering in Samarium Hexaboride journal September 2019
Finite temperature physics of 1D topological Kondo insulator: Stable Haldane phase, emergent energy scale and beyond journal October 2018
Non-trivial surface states of samarium hexaboride at the (111) surface journal May 2019
de Haas-van Alphen effect of correlated Dirac states in kagome metal Fe3Sn2 journal October 2019
Magnetic field-tuned Fermi liquid in a Kondo insulator journal December 2019
Anomalous quantum oscillations and evidence for a non-trivial Berry phase in SmSb journal May 2019
Unconventional thermal metallic state of charge-neutral fermions in an insulator journal July 2019
Observation of highly stable and symmetric lanthanide octa-boron inverse sandwich complexes journal July 2018
Fermi surfaces in Kondo insulators journal March 2018
Quantum oscillations in strongly correlated topological Kondo insulators journal August 2019
Cyclotron resonance inside the Mott gap: A fingerprint of emergent neutral fermions journal October 2019
Quantum oscillations in insulators with neutral Fermi surfaces journal January 2018
Field-dependent heat transport in the Kondo insulator SmB 6 : Phonons scattered by magnetic impurities journal June 2018
Fermi surface, possible unconventional fermions, and unusually robust resistive critical fields in the chiral-structured superconductor AuBe journal March 2019
Quantum Oscillation from In-Gap States and a Non-Hermitian Landau Level Problem journal July 2018
Quantum Oscillations in Flux-Grown SmB 6 with Embedded Aluminum journal April 2019
Anomalous Conductance Oscillations in the Hybridization Gap of InAs / GaSb Quantum Wells journal September 2019
Quantum Oscillation from In-gap States and non-Hermitian Landau Level Problem text January 2018
Fermi surface, possible unconventional fermions, and unusually robust resistive critical fields in the chiral-structured superconductor AuBe text January 2018
Investigation of high-temperature bulk transport characteristics and skew scattering in samarium hexaboride preprint January 2019

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71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
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