Possible observation of Kondo screening cloud in Yb₁₄MnSb₁₁^*

* Dedicated to Professor M. Brian Maple on the Occasion of his 80th Birthday.

ABSTRACT

Single crystals of the underscreened Kondo ferromagnet Yb₁₄MnSb₁₁ were investigated using polarised neutron diffraction and magnetisation measurements. The magnitude and direction of the magnetisation at each of the 9 distinct crystallographic sites was measured using polarised neutron diffraction. A large moment of close to 4.2 μ_B was found at the unique Mn site. A compensating antiferromagnetic moment of ≈−0.5 μ_B was found to be distributed uniformly among the remaining Yb and Sb sites, which was not expected from a previous theoretical calculation. The compensating magnetisation, however, is consistent both in size and magnitude with the expected Kondo screening cloud.

KEYWORDS:

• Kondo screening cloud
• polarised neutron diffraction
• underscreened Kondo ferromagnet

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Beatrice Gillon and Alain Cousson for help with the polarised neutron experiments at Saclay. BCS, DM and MAM were supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division. A portion of the research at ORNL's High Flux Isotope Reactor and the Spallation Neutron Source was sponsored by the Scientific User Facilities Division, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, US Department of Energy. This manuscript has been authored in part by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/dowloads/doe-public-access-plan).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

M. D. Lumsden http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5472-9660

Notes

* Dedicated to Professor M. Brian Maple on the Occasion of his 80th Birthday.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Research was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division.