Nozieˋres' exhaustion theory argues the temperature for coherently screening of all local moments in Kondo lattice could be much lower than the temperature of single moment screening with insufficient number of conduction electrons. Recent experiment [Luo et al, PNAS, 112,13520 (2015)] indicates the cerium based nickel pnictides CeNi2−δAs2(δ≈0.28) with low carrier density is an ideal material to exam such protracted Kondo screening. Using the density functional theory and dynamical mean-field theory, we calculated the respective electronic structures of paramagnetic CeNi2As2/CeNi2P2. In contrast to structurally analogous layered iron pnictides, the electronic structures of the present systems show strong three-dimensionality with substantially small contributions of Ni-3d electrons to the carrier density. Moreover, we find significant Kondo resonance peaks in the compressed CeNi2As2 and CeNi2P2 at low temperatures, accompanied by topological changes of the Fermi surfaces. We also find similar quantum phase transition in CeNi2As2 driven by chemical pressure via the isovalence As→P substitution.
@article{arxiv.1909.13251,
title = {Protracted Kondo coherence with dilute carrier density in Cerium based nickel pnictides},
author = {Peng Zhang and Bo Liu and Shengli Zhang and K. Haule and Jianhui Dai},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1909.13251},
year = {2024}
}