Electronic structure of CeRh2Sn4.

Abstract

Many cerium based ternary compounds of Ce-T-X-type, where T is a transition metal and X is a p-element, exhibit unusual physical phenomena such as heavy-Fermi (HF) liquid or non-Fermi-liquid types of behaviour in a metallic state or a Kondo-lattice/valencefluctuation type of state. The stability of paramagnetic or magnetically ordered ground state in such compounds strongly depends on the on-site hybridization energy among conduction and f electrons, the bare f-level position in the conduction band, the magnitude of intrasite Coulomb interaction and the number of electrons occupying the f-shell.
CeRhSn has attracted great interest during the last years due to its non-Fermi liquid character of low-temperature physical properties [1–6], having been explained in terms of the Griffiths phase. Moreover, in this system, Ce is in a mixed valence state and the Ce 4f states strongly hybridize with the conduction band. It is interesting to examine in detail the effect of stoichiometry and crystal structure on the formation of different ground states of the compound in the system Ce–Rh–Sn. Here, we present a study of a new compound CeRh2Sn4 which has not been investigated so far.