TY - JOUR
T1 - 29 Si nuclear spin-lattice relaxation in CePtSi 1-xGex near a magnetic instability
AU - Young, Ben-Li
AU - MacLaughlin, D. E.
AU - Rose, M. S.
AU - Ishida, K.
AU - Bernal, O. O.
AU - Lukefahr, H. G.
AU - Heuser, K.
AU - Stewart, G. R.
PY - 2004/11/1
Y1 - 2004/11/1
N2 - 29 Si nuclear spin-lattice relaxation measurements have been performed in the heavy-fermion alloys CePtSi1-xGex, x=0 and 0.1, in order to study spin dynamics near a magnetic instability. The spin-relaxation curves for both x=0 and x=0.1 are found to fit to a stretched exponential slightly better than a single exponential function, which suggests that the relaxation rates are inhomogeneous to some extent, due to structural disorder. Within experimental resolution, the relaxation curve is in agreement with the theoretical curve calculated from the Kondo-disorder model. The temperature-dependent relaxation rate 1/T1 follows the Korringa relation in CePtSi below 4 K, but not in CePtSi0.9Ge0.1. This means that Fermi-liquid and non-Fermi-liquid excitations appear in x=0 and x=0.1 samples, respectively, which agrees with the results from specific heat experiments. The effective moments of Ce3+ ions in CePtSi 1-xGex for directions parallel and perpendicular to the c axis, calculated from the crystalline electric field (CEF) levels, explain the anisotropy in the observed susceptibilities, hyperfine coupling constants, and spin-lattice relaxation rates. The magnitude of the CEF-corrected Korringa products for the two samples shows the same order as the expected value for a Fermi gas, which indicates that no obvious spin-correlated fluctuations or magnetic order are present. This seems to disagree with the Griffiths phase model, in which magnetic clusters are spatially-extended objects containing many spins.
AB - 29 Si nuclear spin-lattice relaxation measurements have been performed in the heavy-fermion alloys CePtSi1-xGex, x=0 and 0.1, in order to study spin dynamics near a magnetic instability. The spin-relaxation curves for both x=0 and x=0.1 are found to fit to a stretched exponential slightly better than a single exponential function, which suggests that the relaxation rates are inhomogeneous to some extent, due to structural disorder. Within experimental resolution, the relaxation curve is in agreement with the theoretical curve calculated from the Kondo-disorder model. The temperature-dependent relaxation rate 1/T1 follows the Korringa relation in CePtSi below 4 K, but not in CePtSi0.9Ge0.1. This means that Fermi-liquid and non-Fermi-liquid excitations appear in x=0 and x=0.1 samples, respectively, which agrees with the results from specific heat experiments. The effective moments of Ce3+ ions in CePtSi 1-xGex for directions parallel and perpendicular to the c axis, calculated from the crystalline electric field (CEF) levels, explain the anisotropy in the observed susceptibilities, hyperfine coupling constants, and spin-lattice relaxation rates. The magnitude of the CEF-corrected Korringa products for the two samples shows the same order as the expected value for a Fermi gas, which indicates that no obvious spin-correlated fluctuations or magnetic order are present. This seems to disagree with the Griffiths phase model, in which magnetic clusters are spatially-extended objects containing many spins.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=12344273352&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevB.70.174430
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevB.70.174430
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:12344273352
VL - 70
SP - 1
EP - 13
JO - Physical Review B
JF - Physical Review B
SN - 2469-9950
IS - 17
M1 - 174430
ER -