Related papers: Samarium hexaboride: A trivial surface conductor
SmB$_6$, known to be a Kondo insulator, has received intense scrutiny in recent years due to its paradoxical experimental signatures: while some quantities show an insulating behavior, others point to a metallic state. This has led to the…
We study a generic topological Kondo insulator system by performing a mean-field theoretic calculation within the frame-work of slave-boson protocol. We assume infinite Hubbard-type interaction among the localized electrons. The difference…
We utilize terahertz time domain spectroscopy to investigate thin films of the heavy fermion compound SmB6, a prototype Kondo insulator. Temperature dependent terahertz (THz) conductivity measurements reveal a rapid decrease in the Drude…
Utilizing a combination of dynamical mean field theory and density functional theory (DMFT/DFT), it has been theoretically proposed that PuB$_6$ is a strongly correlated topological insulator characterized by nontrivial $\mathbf{Z}_{2}$…
We present local and nonlocal electrical transport measurements of the correlated insulator FeSb$_2$. By employing wiring configurations that delineate between bulk- and surface-dominated conduction, we reveal the formation of a metallic…
The spin-polarized surface states of topological insulators have attracted interest both from a fundamental and applied point of view. A recent proposal describes a method of probing these surface states with ferromagnetic contacts, which…
The intermediate-valence compound SmB6 is a well-known Kondo insulator, in which hybridization of itinerant 5d electrons with localized 4f electrons leads to a transition from metallic to insulating behavior at low temperatures. Recent…
The resistance of a conventional insulator diverges as temperature approaches zero. The peculiar low temperature resistivity saturation in the 4f Kondo insulator (KI) SmB6 has spurred proposals of a correlation-driven topological Kondo…
A synergistic effect between strong electron correlation and spin-orbit interaction (SOI) has been theoretically predicted to result in a new topological state of quantum matter on Kondo insulators (KIs), so-called topological Kondo…
Heavy fermion materials have recently attracted attention for their potential to combine topological protection with strongly correlated electron physics. To date, the ideas of topological protection have been restricted to the heavy…
We have investigated the surface states of a potential mixed-valent topological insulator SmB$_6$ based on the first principles density functional theory slab band structure analysis. We have found that metallic surface states are formed in…
Since its discovery as a Kondo insulator 50 years ago, SmB6 recently received a revival of interest due to detection of unexpected quantum oscillations in the insulating state, discovery of disorder-immune bulk transport, and proposals of…
Topological insulators are characterized by an inverted band structure in the bulk and metallic surface states on the surface. In LaBi, a semimetal with a band inversion equivalent to a topological insulator, we observe surface state like…
Kondo insulating materials lie outside the usual dichotomy of weakly versus correlated - band versus Mott - insulators. They are metallic at high temperatures but resemble band insulators at low temperatures because of the opening of an…
Recent quantum oscillation experiments on SmB$_6$ pose a paradox, for while the angular dependence of the oscillation frequencies suggest a 3D bulk Fermi surface, SmB$_6$ remains robustly insulating to very high magnetic fields. Moreover, a…
Temperature dependence of the electronic structure of SmB6 is studied by high-resolution ARPES down to 1 K. We demonstrate that there is no essential difference for the dispersions of the surface states below and above the resistivity…
The compound SmB$_6$ is a Kondo Insulator, where the lowest-energy bulk electronic excitations are spin excitons. It also has surface states that are subjected to strong spin-orbit coupling. It has been suggested that SmB$_6$ is also a…
Heavy-fermion family exhibits fascinating and often puzzling properties due to the presence of open-shell $f$ ions and the complexity of the associated charge, orbital, and spin degrees of freedom. SmB$_6 $ is a prototypical heavy-fermion…
Possible topological nature of Kondo and mixed valence insulators has been a recent topic of interest in condensed matter physics. Attention has focused on SmB6, which has long been known to exhibit low temperature transport anomaly, whose…
Earlier studies on the Kondo insulator SmB6 reveal the presence of a bulk Kondo insulating gap between 30 - 50 K, and the emergence of a conducting surface state only below 4 K. Here, we compare the two-coil mutual inductance pick-up…