We present a careful and thorough microscopic derivation of the Kondo Hamiltonian for single-molecule magnets (SMMs) transistors. When the molecule is strongly coupled to metallic leads, we show that by applying a transverse magnetic field it is possible to topologically induce or quench the Kondo effect in the conductance of a SMM with either an integer or a half-integer spin S>1/2. This topological Kondo effect is due to the Berry phase interference between multiple quantum tunneling paths of the spin. We calculate the renormalized Berry phase oscillations of the two Kondo peaks as a function of the transverse magnetic field by means of the poor man's scaling. In particular, we show that the Kondo exchange interaction between itinerant electrons in the leads and the SMM pseudo spin 1/2 depends crucially on the SMM spin selection rules for the addition and subtraction of an electron and can range from antiferromagnetic to ferromagnetic. We illustrate our findings with the SMM Ni4, which we propose as a possible candidate for the experimental observation of the conductance oscillations.
We study the Kondo screening effect generated by a single-electron transistor or quantum dot embedded in a small metallic ring. When the ring circumference $L$ becomes comparable to the fundamental length scale $ξ_K^0=\hbar \upsilon _F/T_K^0$ associated with the {\it bulk} Kondo tempe the Kondo resonance is strongly affected, depending on the total number of electrons ({\it modulo} 4) and magnetic flux threading the ring. The resulting Kondo-assisted persistent currents are also calculated in both Kondo and mixed valence regimes, and the maximum values are found in the crossover region.
The effect of side-traps on conductance is calculated in the range of slave-boson mean field theory, especially when there are electrodes on both sides of the conductor. This corresponds to an investigation of transport properties in future ballistic transistors. An intrinsic dip as a result of the interference effect (Fano-Kondo effect) is expected to be observed as one of interesting interplays between physics and engineering devices.
We investigate the low-temperature dynamics of single electron boxes and transistors close to their degeneracy point using renormalization group methods. We show that intermode scattering is a relevant perturbation and always drives the system to the two-channel Kondo fixed point, where the two channels correspond to the real spins of the conduction electrons. However, the crossover temperature T^*, below which Matveev's two-channel Kondo scenario [K.A. Matveev, Phys. Rev. B 51, 1743 (1995)] develops decreases exponentially with the number of conduction modes in the tunneling junctions and is …
An empirical formula is proposed to calculate the Kondo temperature in quantum point contacts from the Zeeman splitting. A similar formula was used in the point-contact spectroscopy (PCS) method to obtain from the Zeeman splitting of the Kondo peak in the characteristics of the classical Kondo alloys AuFe and CuMn [1]. Using this formula, it is possible to find the Kondo temperature taking into account the temperature of the experiment and Lande factor of the compounds.
We demonstrate that the conductance through a single-electron transistor at low temperature is in quantitative agreement with predictions of the equilibrium Anderson model. When an unpaired electron is localized within the transistor, the Kondo effect is observed. Tuning the unpaired electron's energy toward the Fermi level in nearby leads produces a cross-over between the Kondo and mixed-valence regimes of the Anderson model.
Single-electron transistors attached to ferromagnetic leads can undergo a continuous quantum phase transition as their gate voltage is tuned. The corresponding quantum critical point separates a Fermi liquid phase from a non-Fermi liquid one. Here, we expound on the physical idea proposed earlier. The key physics is the critical destruction of the Kondo effect, which underlies a new class of quantum criticality that has been argued to apply to heavy fermion metals. Its manifestation in the transport properties is studied through an effective Bose-Fermi Kondo model; the bosonic bath, correspond…
We have used an electromigration technique to fabricate C$_{60}$-based single-molecule transistors. We detail the process statistics and the protocols used to infer the successful formation of a single-molecule transistor. At low temperatures each transistor acts as a single-electron device in the Coulomb blockade regime. Resonances in the differential conductance indicate vibrational excitations consistent with a known mode of C$_{60}$. In several devices we observe conductance features characteristic of the Kondo effect, a coherent many-body state comprising an unpaired spin on the molecule …
Recently, Coulomb blockade physics was observed at room temperature in a carbon nanotube single-electron transistor (H. W. Ch. Postma, et. al., Science 293, 76 (2001)). In this work, we suggest that these devices may be promising for studying the Kondo effect. In particular, they could allow for a detailed investigation of the 2-channel Kondo fixed point. Moreover, fabricating a similar device in a short nanotube could be promising for studying the effect of a magnetic impurity in an ultrasmall metallic grain. Experimental signatures of the Kondo effect in these systems is discussed.
The interplay between magnetic field and microwave applied in a single-electron transistor(SET) has a profound influence on the Kondo effect, as shown in a recent experiment[B. Hemingway, S. Herbert, M. Melloch and A. Kogan, arXiv:1304.0037(2013)]. For a given microwave frequency, the Kondo differential conductance shows a non-monotonic magnetic field dependence, and a very sharp peak is observed for certain field applied. Additionally, the microwave frequency is found to be larger of about one order than the corresponding Zeeman energy. These two features are not understood in the current the…
We investigate theoretically a mechanically assisted Kondo effect and electric charge shuttling in nanoelectromechanical single-electron transistor (NEM-SET). It is shown that the mechanical motion of the central island (a small metallic particle) with the spin results in the time dependent tunneling width which leads to effective increase of the Kondo temperature. The time-dependent oscillating Kondo temperature T_K(t) changes the scaling behavior of the differential conductance resulting in the suppression of transport in a strong coupling- and its enhancement in a weak coupling regimes. The…
Electron transport through molecular quantum dots coupled to a single vibrational mode is studied in the Kondo regime. We apply a generalized Schrieffer-Wolff transformation to determine the effective low-energy spin-spin-vibron-interaction. From this model we calculate the nonlinear conductance and find Kondo sidebands located at bias-voltages equal to multiples of the vibron frequency. Due to selection rules, the side-peaks are found to have strong gate-voltage dependences, which can be tested experimentally. In the limit of weak electron-vibron coupling, we employ a perturbative renormaliza…
The peculiar behavior of Kondo peak splitting under a magnetic field and bias can be explained by calculating the nonequilibrium retarded Green's function via the nonperturbative dynamical theory (NDT). In the NDT, the application of a lead-dot-lead system reveals that new resonant tunneling levels are activated near the Fermi level and the conventional Kondo peak at the Fermi level diminishes when a bias is applied. Magnetic field causes asymmetry in the spectral density and transforms the new resonant peak into a major peak whose behavior explains all the features of the nonequilibrium Kondo…
Using a time-dependent Anderson Hamiltonian, a quantum dot with an ac voltage applied to a nearby gate is investigated. A rich dependence of the linear response conductance on the external frequency and driving amplitude is demonstrated. At low frequencies the ac potential produces sidebands of the Kondo peak in the spectral density of the dot, resulting in a logarithmic decrease in conductance over several decades of frequency. At intermediate frequencies, the conductance of the dot displays an oscillatory behavior due to the appearance of Kondo resonances of the satellites of the dot level. …
We study magneto-electric properties of single electron traps in metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistors. Using a microscopic description of the system based on the single-site Anderson-Holstein model, we derive an effective low energy action for the system. The behavior of the system is characterized by simultaneous polaron tunneling (corresponding to the charging and discharging of the trap) and Kondo screening of the trap spin in the singly occupied state. Hence, the obtained state of the system is a hybrid between the Kondo regime, typically associated with single electron occup…
The thermal dependence of the electrical conductance of the single-electron transistor (SET) in the zero-bias Kondo regime is discussed. An exact mapping to the universal curve for the symmetric Anderson model is established. Linear, the mapping is parametrized by the Kondo temperature and the charge in the Kondo cloud. Illustrative numerical renormalization-group results, in excellent agreement with the mapping, are presented.
A single-electron transistor (SET) in a magnetic field irradiated with microwaves is studied theoretically in non-equilibrium Kondo regime. The two fold effect of frequency--Ω--microwaves is considered as follows: the oscillations in the voltage with frequency Ωand in the coupling parameters with frequency Ω/p (p\in\mathbb{N}). We describe the system by the Kondo model at a specific point in the Toulouse limit. A non-perturbative technique is proposed, namely, the non-equilibrium Green's functions and physical observables are averaged over a period of 2πp/Ω. When the microwave irradiation is c…
We present the first quantitative experimental evidence for the underscreened Kondo effect, an uncomplete compensation of a quantized magnetic moment by conduction electrons, as originally proposed by Nozieres and Blandin. The device consists of an even charge spin S = 1 molecular quantum dot, obtained by electromigration of C60 molecules into gold nanogaps and operated in a dilution fridge. The persistence of logarithmic singularities in the low temperature conductance is demonstrated by a comparison to the fully screened configuration obtained in odd charge spin S = 1/2 Coulomb diamonds. We …
The Kondo-effect is a many-body phenomenon arising due to conduction electrons scattering off a localized spin. Coherent spin-flip scattering off such a quantum impurity correlates the conduction electrons and at low temperature this leads to a zero-bias conductance anomaly. This has become a common signature in bias-spectroscopy of single-electron transistors, observed in GaAs quantum dots as well as in various single-molecule transistors. While the zero-bias Kondo effect is well established it remains uncertain to what extent Kondo correlations persist in non-equilibrium situations where ine…
The interplay of electron-electron and electron-phonon interactions is studied analytically in the Kondo regime. A Holstein electron-phonon coupling is shown to produce a weakening of the gate voltage dependence of the Kondo temperature and may explain the observed anomalies in some of these devices. A molecular center-of-mass mode opens a new channel for charge and spin fluctuations and in the antiadabatic limit the latter are described by an asymmetric two-channel Kondo model. Below the Kondo temperature the system develops a dynamical Jahn-Teller distortion and a low energy peak emerges in …
The question of how localized electrons interact with delocalized electrons is central to many problems at the forefront of solid state physics. The simplest example is the Kondo phenomenon, which occurs when an impurity atom with an unpaired electron is placed in a metal, and the energy of the unpaired electron is far below the Fermi energy. At low temperatures a spin singlet state is formed between the unpaired localized electron and delocalized electrons at the Fermi energy. The confined droplet of electrons interacting with the leads of a single electron transistor (SET) is closely analogo…
Semiconductor nano-devices have been scaled to the level that transport can be dominated by a single dopant atom. In the strong coupling case a Kondo effect is observed when one electron is bound to the atom. Here, we report on the spin as well as orbital Kondo ground state. We experimentally as well than theoretically show how we can tune a symmetry transition from a SU(4) ground state, a many body state that forms a spin as well as orbital singlet by virtual exchange with the leads, to a pure SU(2) orbital ground state, as a function of magnetic field. The small size and the s-like orbital s…
We study the spin-1/2 single-channel Anderson impurity model with correlated (occupancy dependent) hybridization for molecular transistors using the numerical renormalization-group method. Correlated hybridization can induce nonuniversal deviations in the normalized zero-bias conductance and, for some parameters, modestly enhance the spin polarization of currents in applied magnetic field. Correlated hybridization can also explain a gate-voltage dependence to the Kondo scale similar to what has been observed in recent experiments.
The linear and nonlinear transport properties of the single-electron transistor at the degeneracy point are investigated for the case of weak single-mode tunnel junctions. Two opposing scenarios are considered, distinguished by whether or not electrons can propagate coherently between the two tunnel junctions. Each of these two scenarios corresponds to the realization of a different multichannel Kondo effect - the two-channel Kondo effect in the case where coherent propagation is allowed, and the four-channel Kondo effect in the absence of coherent propagation. A detailed analysis of the linea…
We investigate the charge fluctuations of a single-electron box (metallic grain) coupled to a lead via a smaller quantum dot in the Kondo regime. The most interesting aspect of this problem resides in the interplay between spin Kondo physics stemming from the screening of the spin of the small dot and orbital Kondo physics emerging when charging states of the grain with (charge) Q=0 and Q=e are almost degenerate. Combining Wilson's numerical renormalization-group method with perturbative scaling approaches we push forward our previous work [K. Le Hur and P. Simon, Phys. Rev. B 67, 201308R (200…
Considerable evidence exists for the failure of the traditional theory of quantum critical points (QCPs), pointing to the need to incorporate novel excitations. The destruction of Kondo entanglement and the concomitant critical Kondo effect may underlie these emergent excitations in heavy fermion metals -- a prototype system for quantum criticality -- but the effect remains poorly understood. Here, we show how ferromagnetic single-electron transistors can be used to study this effect. We theoretically demonstrate a gate-voltage induced quantum phase transition. The critical Kondo effect is man…
We present a study of spin 1/2 Kondo singlets in single electron transistors under a microwave frequency bias excitation. We compare time-averaged conductance $G$ to predicted universal response with respect to microwave frequency, oscillation amplitude and the Kondo temperature and find a non-adiabatic response when the microwave photon energy $hf$ is comparable to the Kondo temperature $k_B T_K$. We show that our measurements are qualitatively consistent with the predictions for the radiation-induced decoherence rate of the Kondo spin.
The linear transport properties of a model molecular transistor with electron-electron and electron-phonon interactions were investigated analytically and numerically. The model takes into account phonon modulation of the electronic energy levels and of the tunnelling barrier between the molecule and the electrodes. When both effects are present they lead to asymmetries in the dependence of the conductance on gate voltage. The Kondo effect is observed in the presence of electron-phonon interactions. There are important qualitative differences between the cases of weak and strong coupling. In t…
Motivated by the mysteries of the heavy fermion quantum critical point, we investigate the competition between Kondo screening and magnetic ordering in the honeycomb Kondo lattice at half filling. We examine the destruction of the Kondo phase by proliferating vortex configurations in the Kondo hybridization order parameter. We find that there are zero modes associated with Kondo vortices. Condensing these vortices can lead to the antiferromagnetic phase.
This is a popular review of some recent investigations of the Kondo effect in a variety of mesoscopic systems. After a brief introduction, experiments are described where a scanning tunneling microscope measures the surroundings of a magnetic impurity on a metal surface. In another set of experiments, Kondo effect creates a number of characteristic features in the electron transport through small electronic devices -- semiconductor quantum dots or single-molecule transistors which can be tuned by applying appropriate gate voltages. The article contains 5 color figures, photo of Jun Kondo, but …
Kondo effect arises whenever a coupling to the Fermi gas induces transitions within the otherwise degenerate ground state multiplet of an interacting system. Both coupling to the Fermi gas and interactions are naturally present in any nanoscale transport experiment. At the same time, many nanostructures can easily be tuned to the vicinity of a degeneracy point. This is why the Kondo effect in its various forms often influences the low temperature transport in meso- and nanoscale systems. In this short review we discuss the basic physics of the Kondo effect and its manifestations in the low-tem…
Our resistivity, magnetoresistance, magnetization and specific heat data provide unambiguous evidence that CeRhSn2 is a Kondo lattice system which undergoes magnetic transition below 4 K.
We demonstrate that in a single molecule magnet (SMM) strongly coupled to electrodes the Kondo effect involves all magnetic excitations. This Kondo effect is induced by the quantum tunneling of the magnetic moment (QTM). Importantly, the Kondo temperature $T_K$ can be much larger than the magnetic splittings. We find a strong modulation of the Kondo effect as function of the transverse anisotropy parameter or a longitudinal magnetic field. For both integer and half-integer spin this can be used for an accurate transport spectroscopy of the magnetic states in low magnetic fields on the order of…
This is a comment for a paper entitled "Low-Temperature Magnetic Properties of the Kondo Lattice Model in One Dimension" [S.Minami and H.Kawamura, JPSJ84,044702(2015)].
We study a layered three-dimensional heterostructure in which two types of Kondo insulators are stacked alternatingly. One of them is the topological Kondo insulator SmB 6 , the other one an isostructural Kondo insulator AB 6 , where A is a rare-earth element, e.g., Eu, Yb, or Ce. We find that if the latter orders ferromagnetically, the heterostructure generically becomes a magnetic Weyl Kondo semimetal, while antiferromagnetic order can yield a magnetic Dirac Kondo semimetal. We detail both scenarios with general symmetry considerations as well as concrete tight-binding calcu-lations and show…
We analyze the magnetically ordered phases in the Kondo lattice model on a square lattice around quarter filling using the dynamical mean field theory. We find that close to quarter filling besides the paramagnetic phase, at least three magnetic phases compete. These phases are a ferromagnetic state, a partial Kondo screened state, which is a combination of charge order and magnetic order, and a striped magnetic phase, which is ferromagnetically ordered in one direction and antiferromagnetically in the other direction. We analyze the spectral properties of these states and show that the PKS st…
When a magnetic ion vibrates in a metal, it inevitably introduces a new channel of hybridization with conduction electrons and in general, the vibrating ion induces electric dipole moment. In such a situation, we find that magnetic and non-magnetic Kondo effects alternatively occur due to the screening of spin moment and electric dipole moment of vibrating ion. In particular, electric dipolar two-channel Kondo effect is found to occur for weak Coulomb interaction. We also show that magnetically robust heavy-electron state appears near the fixed point of electric dipolar two-channel Kondo effec…
The splitting of the Kondo resonance in the density of states of an Anderson impurity in finite magnetic field is calculated from the exact Bethe-ansatz solution. The result gives an estimate of the electron spectral function for nonzero magnetic field and Kondo temperature, with consequences for transport experiments on quantum dots in the Kondo regime. The strong correlations of the Kondo ground state cause a significant low-temperature reduction of the peak splitting. Explicit formulae are found for the shift and broadening of the Kondo peaks. A likely cause of the problems of large-N appro…
A generalized Anderson model for a magnetic ion in a harmonic potential is formulated. The model is investigated by the numerical renormalization group(NRG) method. In addition to the conventional s-wave screening, the model exhibits phonon assisted p-wave Kondo effect as well as Yu and Anderson type Kondo effect. It is shown that the s-wave Kondo and the Yu-Anderson Kondo belong to the same fixed point. At the boundary between the s-wave and p-wave Kondo regions line of fixed points of the two channel Kondo effect is identified.
Scaling laws and universality are often associated with systems exhibiting emergent phenomena possessing a characteristic energy scale. We report nonequilibrium transport measurements on two different types of single-molecule transistor (SMT) devices in the Kondo regime. The conductance at low bias and temperature adheres to a scaling function characterized by two parameters. This result, analogous to that reported recently in semiconductor dots with Kondo temperatures two orders of magnitude lower, demonstrates the universality of this scaling form. We compare the extracted values of the scal…
In the Kondo effect, a localized magnetic moment is screened by forming a correlated electron system with the surrounding conduction electrons of a non-magnetic host. Spin S=1/2 Kondo systems have been investigated extensively in theory and experiments, but magnetic atoms often have a larger spin. Larger spins are subject to the influence of magnetocrystalline anisotropy, which describes the dependence of the magnetic moment's energy on the orientation of the spin relative to its surrounding atomic environment. Here we demonstrate the decisive role of magnetic anisotropy in the physics of Kond…
We consider the Kondo tunneling induced by multiphonon emission/absorption processes in magnetic molecular complexes with low-energy singlet-triplet spin gap and show that the number of assisting phonons may be changed by varying the Zeeman splitting of excited triplet state. As a result, the structure of multiphonon Kondo resonances may be scanned by means of magnetic field tuning.
Impurities and defects in Kondo insulators can have an unusual impact on dynamics that blends with effects of intrinsic electron correlations. Such crystal imperfections are difficult to avoid, and their consequences are incompletely understood. Here we study magnetic impurities in Kondo insulators via perturbation theory of the s-d Kondo impurity model adapted to small bandgap insulators. The calculated magnetization and specific heat agree with recent thermodynamic measurements in samarium hexaboride (SmB$_6$). This qualitative agreement supports the physical picture of multi-channel Kondo s…
Magnetic frustration, which is well-defined in insulating systems with localized magnetic moments, yields exotic ground states like spin ices, spin glasses, or spin liquids. In metals magnetic frustration is less well defined because of the incipient delocalization of magnetic moments by the interaction with conduction electrons, viz., the Kondo effect. Hence, the Kondo effect and magnetic frustration are antithetic phenomena. Here we present experimental data of electrical resistivity, magnetization, specific heat and neutron diffraction on CePdAl, which is one of the rare examples of a geome…
We present a generic mechanism that explains why many Kondo materials show magnetic ordering along directions that are not favoured by the crystal-field anisotropy. Using a renormalization-group (RG) analysis of single impurity Kondo models with single-ion anisotropy, we demonstrate that strong fluctuations above the Kondo temperature drive a moment re-orientation over a wide range of parameters, e.g. for different spin values $S$ and number of Kondo channels $N$. In tetragonal systems this can happen for both easy-plane or easy axis anisotropy. The characteristic crossing of magnetic suscepti…
This paper is concerned with the out-of-equilibrium two-lead Kondo model, considered as a model of a quantum dot in the Kondo regime. We revisit the perturbative expansion of the dot's magnetization, and conclude that, even at order 0 in the Kondo interactions, the magnetization is not given by the usual equilibrium result. We use the Schwinger-Keldysh method to derive a Dyson equation describing the steady state induced by the voltage between the two leads, and thus present the correct procedure for calculating perturbative expansions of steady-state properties of the system.
We study how the formation of the Kondo compensation cloud influences the dynamical properties of a magnetic impurity that tunnels between two positions in a metal. The Kondo effect dynamically generates a strong tunneling impurity-conduction electron coupling, changes the temperature dependence of the tunneling rate, and may ultimately result in the destruction of the coherent motion of the particle at zero temperature. We find an interesting two-channel Kondo fixed point as well for a vanishing overlap between the electronic states that screen the magnetic impurity. We propose a number of sy…
The Kondo lattice model of spin-1/2 local moments coupled to the conduction electrons at half-filling is studied for its orbital response to magnetic field on bipartite lattices. Through an effective charge dynamics, in a canonical representation of electrons that appropriately describes the Kondo insulating ground state, the magnetization is found to show de Haas-van Alphen oscillations from intermediate to weak Kondo coupling. These oscillations are ascribed to Lifshitz-like inversion of a dispersion of the gapped quasiparticles, whose chemical potential surface is measured by the oscillatio…
Based on the experimental observation, that only the close vicinity of a magnetic impurity at metal surfaces determines its Kondo behaviour, we introduce a simple model which explains the Kondo temperatures observed for cobalt adatoms at the (111) and (100) surfaces of Cu, Ag, and Au. Excellent agreement between the model and scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS) experiments is demonstrated. The Kondo temperature is shown to depend on the occupation of the d-level determined by the hybridization between adatom and substrate with a minimum around single occupancy.
We study the Kondo screening of a magnetic impurity in a two-dimensional superconductor with Rashba spin-orbit coupling (SOC). It is found that the Rashba interaction generates a novel Kondo screening channel, in which the local moment is screened by the exchange coupling with conduction electrons in different spin and orbital states. The Kondo temperature associated with this process is determined by the interplay between the Rashba SOC and superconducting energy gap. As a result, the quantum phase transition between the magnetic doublet and Kondo singlet ground states is significantly affect…
A simplified version of the symmetric Kondo lattice model, the Kondo necklace model, is studied by using a representation of impurity and conduction electron spins in terms of local Kondo singlet and triplet operators. Within a mean field theory, a spin gap always appears in the spin triplet excitation spectrum in 1D, leading to a Kondo spin liquid state for any finite values of coupling strength $t/J$ (with $t$ as hopping and $J$ as exchange); in 2D and 3D cubic lattices the spin gaps are found to vanish continuously around $(t/J)_c\approx 0.70$ and $(t/J)_c\approx 0.38$, respectively, where …
Magnetic properties are investigated for the Kondo lattice by using the continuous time quantum Monte Colro (CT-QMC) and the dynamical mean field theory (DMFT). The DMFT+CT-QMC approach is extended so as to derive the anisotropic magnetic response in the antiferromagnetic phase. The longitudinal and transverse magnetic susceptibilities are numerically derived in the antiferromagnetic phase. For the RKKY regime with a small Kondo coupling, the transverse susceptibility does not decrease below the transition temperature while the longitudinal susceptibility decreases as expected from the mean fi…
We discuss possible competition between magnetic and quadrupole Kondo effects in non-Kramers doublet systems under cubic symmetry. The quadrupole Kondo effect leads to non-Fermi-liquid (NFL) ground state, while the magnetic one favors ordinary Fermi liquid (FL). In terms of the $j$-$j$ coupling scheme, we emphasize that the orbital fluctuation must develop in the vicinity of the NFL-FL boundary. We demonstrate a change of behavior in the f-electron entropy by the Wilson's numerical renormalization-group (NRG) method on the basis of the extended two-channel Kondo exchange model. We present impl…
We study the nonequilibrium transport through a multichannel Kondo quantum dot in the presence of a magnetic field. We use the exact solution of the two-loop renormalization group equation to derive analytical results for the g factor, the spin relaxation rates, the magnetization, and the differential conductance. We show that the finite magnetization leads to a coupling between the conduction channels which manifests itself in additional features in the differential conductance.
We derive a consistent 2-loop scaling picture for a Kondo dot in both equilibrium and non-equilibrium situations using the flow equation method. Our analysis incorporates the important decoherence effects from both thermal and non-equilibrium noise in a common setting. We calculate the spin-spin correlation function, the T-matrix, and the magnetization as functions of applied magnetic field, dc-voltage bias and temperature. In all these quantities we observe characteristic non-equilibrium features for a nonvanishing external voltage bias like Kondo splitting and strongly enhanced logarithmic c…
Effect of anharmonicity of a cage potential for a magnetic ion vibrating in a metal is investigated by the numerical renormalization group method. The cage potential is assumed to be one-dimensional and of the double-well type. In the absence of the Coulomb interaction, we find continuous crossover among the three limiting cases: Yu-Anderson-type Kondo regime, the double-well-type Kondo one, and the renormalized Fermi chain one. In the entire parameter space of the double-well potential, the ground state is described by a local Fermi liquid. In the Yu-Anderson-type Kondo regime, a quantum phas…
Motivated by recent experiments, we consider a single-electron transistor in the Kondo regime which is coupled to three leads in the presence of large bias voltages. Such a steady-state non-equilibrium system is to a large extent governed by a decoherence rate induced by the current through the dot. As the two-terminal conductance turns out to be rather insensitive to the decoherence rate, we study the conductance in a three-terminal device using perturbative renormalization group and calculate the characteristic splitting of the Kondo resonance. The interplay between potential biases and anis…
In order to study the effects of strong magnetic field on Kondo insulators, we calculate magnetization curves and single-particle excitation spectra of the periodic Anderson model at half-filling under finite magnetic field by using the self-consistent second-order perturbation theory combined with the local approximation which becomes exact in the limit of infinite spatial dimensions. Without magnetic field, the system behaves as an insulator with an energy gap, describing the Kondo insulators. By applying magnetic field to f-electrons, we found that the energy gap closes and the first order …
We consider the Kondo-lattice model on the kagome lattice and study its weak-coupling instabilities at band filling fractions for which the Fermi surface has singularities. These singularites include Dirac points, quadratic Fermi points in contact with a flat band, and Van Hove saddle points. By combining a controlled analytical approach with large-scale numerical simulations, we demonstrate that the weak-coupling instabilities of the Kondo-lattice model lead to exotic magnetic orderings. In particular, some of these magnetic orderings produce a spontaneous quantum anomalous Hall state.
We have measured the electric resistivity, magnetoresistance, magnetic susceptibility and magnetization of the new Kondo-lattice compound Ce3Pd4Ge4. The electrical resistivity exhibits a rapid drop at temperatures below 6 K, while the magnetic susceptibility does not show any corresponding anomaly at that temperature. This phenomenon is similar to that of Ce3Pd20Ge6 which shows quadrupolar interation. We suggest that there is the possibility of quadrupolar interaction in the orthorhombic 4f-electron system Ce3Pd4Ge4. In addition, it is realized that the spin-dependent scattering effect is resp…
