320 Journal of Magnetism and MagneUc Matermls 63 & 64 (1987) 320-322
North-Holland, Amsterdam
A POLARIZED HEAVY FERMION SYSTEM: CeRu2Si2
P HAEN, J FLOUQUET, F LAPIERRE, P LEJAY, J -M MIGNOT, A PONCHET
and J VOIRON*
CRTBT- CNRS, BP 166 X, 38042 Grenoble- C~dex, France
*Laboratotre Louts Ndel, CNRS, BP 166 X, 38042 Grenoble-C~dex, France
High-pressure magnetoreslstance and suscepUbdlty measurements have been performed on CeRu2SI2 single crystals
The metamagneuc-hke transmon at 4 2 K shifts rapidly from 85 kOe at P = 0 to ~ 180 kOe at 5 4 kbar Th~s variation
correlates with the pressure decrease of X42, suggesting that the transmon occurs for a crmcal value of the magnetization,
in contrast to the predlcUons of an almost locahzed Ferm~ hqmd theory
Cermm-based mtermetalhc compounds with
the ThCr2S12-type tetragonal structure nave
attracted a great deal of interest since the dis-
covery of so-called "heavy-fermlon supercon-
ductwlty" m CeCu2SI2 [1] CeRuzSI2 is another
Interesting case, although all attempts to detect a
superconducting transmon down to 40mK [2]
and now 20 mK [3] have been unsuccessful Near
room temperature, x(T) has a Curie-Weiss de-
pendence with an effective moment close to the
Ce ~÷ value [2] and crystal field excitations are
well resolved in the specific heat data [4] At low
temperatures, no long-range magnetic ordering
occurs and the large linear term in the spectfic
heat (y~350mJ/molK 2) [4,5] characterizes a
Fermi hqmd state of heavy quasi particles An-
other outstanding feature of this compound is ~ts
extremely large anisotropy (Xc/X(a,b)~-15 at
4 2 K [3,6,7]) which makes it necessary to work
with single-crystals The electrical resistivity p
decreases continuously on cooling with a linear
regime between 1 and 10K and a power-law
dependence AT n (n -~ 1 75 rather than 2 in most
speomens) with A = 0 3 to 0 7 ixfl cm K-" below
1 K [3] The unusually strong pressure response
of p at low temperatures [5] suggests that the
system may be close to a valence instability
In a prewous study [6,7], the magnetization at
4 2 K measured with H parallel to the c-axis was
found to display a metamagnetic-hke transmon
with a very steep increase around t4(x) = 85 kOe
"'M
Furthermore, the transverse magnetores~stance
(/411 c) exhibits a large posmve contribution in low
0304-8853/87/$03 50 © Elsevier Science Publishers
(North-Holland Physics Pubhshing Dwlsion)
fields, followed by a pronounced maximum for
H= H~ )~H~ ) This paper describes an
attempt to correlate these intrtguing new features
of CeRuzS12 with the Fermi-liquid parameters of
this system, by varying the temperature and the
magnetic field, and also by applymg an external
pressure Magnetization and restsUwty measure-
ments will be reported, all performed for H ap-
plied along the c-axis, since only weak mono-
tonous effects are obtained for other d~rections
of the field [7]
Small single-crystalline platelets with faces
perpendicular to the c-ax~s were extracted from
ingots of polycrystalhne material One of them
was used for transport experiments by the Van
der Pauw method (sample 1) and a small paral-
lehplped (~ 0 9 × 0 5 x 0 2 mm 3) (sample 2) cut
from a different one for conventional 4-termmal
measurements In both cases, the current was
parallel to the basal plane Magnetoresistance
curves were recorded in a large range of tem-
peratures, from 0 07 to 4 2 K for sample 1 and
from 1 35 to 70K for sample 2 The absolute
reslstivities at room temperature were 85 and
115 I~f~cm respectively and the vanauons
~p(H) at 4 2K were ldenUcal for the two
samples A selected set of data is presented in fig
1 The main features of the curves, 1 e the initial
posmve contribution and the maxtmum In high
fields, disappear only at 70 K The magnetoresis-
tance anomaly is particularly sharp for T < 1 5 K
and the saturation value In high fields is then
larger than the zero-field resistivity Surprisingly
BV