Zeitschrift für Physik B Condensed Matter

ISSN: 0722-3277 (printed version)
ISSN: 1431-584X (electronic version)

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Abstract Volume 103 Issue 2 (1997) pp 263-265

Quantum critical behaviour in the CePd₂Si₂/CeNi₂Ge₂ system

S.J.S. Lister, F.M. Grosche, F.V. Carter, R.K.W. Haselwimmer, S.S. Saxena, N.D. Mathur, S.R. Julian, G.G. Lonzarich

Cavendish Laboratory, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK

Abstract. We have explored the vicinity of the antiferromagnetic quantum critical point in the related heavy fermion metals CePd₂Si₂ and CeNi₂Ge₂ as a function of hydrostatic pressure. The normal state resistivity of the antiferromagnet CePd₂Si₂ near the critical pressure, at which magnetic order disappears, varies as <rho> \sim T^x (1.1 < x < 1.4) over nearly two orders of magnitude in temperature up to about 30 K. This anomalous form for the resistivity appears to defy not only Fermi-liquid theory, but also simple phenomenological models for the effect of spin fluctuations close to a quantum critical point. An analogous unconventional behaviour is observed in the ambient pressure resistivity of the electronically and structurally equivalent, non-magnetic metal CeNi₂Ge₂. At pressures above 15 kbar, a new and unexpected superconducting transition appears in CeNi₂Ge₂ below 220 mK, which rises to higher temperatures with increasing pressure, reaching 400 mK at 26 kbar.

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