Sereni, J. G., M. Gomez Berisso, N. C. Canales, M. Deppe, and C. Geibel. "Tuning ground state degeneracy and quantum criticality in Ce1-xLaxTiGe." Physica Status Solidi (B) Basic Research 247, no. 3 (2010): 707–709.
Abstract: We have tuned the paramagnetic heavy Fermion (HF) system CeTiGe to a more magnetic state and toward quantum criticality (QC) by partially substituting La for Ce. The induced volume expansion leads to a pronounced decrease of the Kondo temperature (TK), from ≈50 K in pure CeTiGe to less than 4 K at large La content. Since the former value is of the order of the crystal field splitting, while the latter is well below, the systems evolves from a large degeneracy N = 6 Kondo system at x = 0 to a conventional N = 2 Kondo system at x ≥ 0:8. There, the first excited crystal field doublets become apparent in the T dependence of the specific heat CP(T) at an excitation energy DCF ≈ 30 K. The reduction of the degeneracy is expected to enhance the decrease of TK, explaining the strong reduction by more than one order of magnitude observed in this system. The decrease of TK drives the system toward QC as evidenced by a divergence of CP(T)/T and x(T) toward low temperatures in the x = 0:8 sample. © 2010 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.
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