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Concept
Heavy fermion material
Summary
In solid-state physics, heavy fermion materials are a specific type of intermetallic compound, containing elements with 4f or 5f electrons in unfilled electron bands. Electrons are one type of fermion, and when they are found in such materials, they are sometimes referred to as heavy electrons. Heavy fermion materials have a low-temperature specific heat whose linear term is up to 1000 times larger than the value expected from the free electron model. The properties of the heavy fermion compounds often derive from the partly filled f-orbitals of rare-earth or actinide ions, which behave like localized magnetic moments. The name "heavy fermion" comes from the fact that the fermion behaves as if it has an effective mass greater than its rest mass. In the case of electrons, below a characteristic temperature (typically 10 K), the conduction electrons in these metallic compounds behave as if they had an effective mass up to 1000 times the free particle mass. This large effective mass is also reflected in a large contribution to the resistivity from electron-electron scattering via the Kadowaki–Woods ratio. Heavy fermion behavior has been found in a broad variety of states including metallic, superconducting, insulating and magnetic states. Characteristic examples are CeCu6, CeAl3, CeCu2Si2, YbAl3, UBe13 and UPt3.
Heavy fermion behavior was discovered by K. Andres, J.E. Graebner and H.R. Ott in 1975, who observed enormous magnitudes of the linear specific heat capacity in CeAl3.
While investigations on doped superconductors led to the conclusion that the existence of localized magnetic moments and superconductivity in one material was incompatible, the opposite was shown, when in 1979 Frank Steglich et al. discovered heavy fermion superconductivity in the material CeCu2Si2.
The discovery of a quantum critical point and non-Fermi liquid behavior in the phase diagram of heavy fermion compounds by H. von Löhneysen et al. in 1994 led to a new rise of interest in the research of these compounds.
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