Nontrivial magnetism in the low-carrier Kondo semimetal revealed via neutron diffraction measurements
Phys. Rev. B 112, 144415 – Published 10 October, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/l3ys-s77m
Abstract
Cerium monopnictide CeSb is a low-carrier-density Kondo lattice semimetal with a complicated magnetic phase diagram. Recently, novel physical phenomena such as a pronounced angle-sensitive negative magnetoresistance, a magnetic topological quantization, and a quantum oscillation in magnetoresistance have been observed in CeSb. However, the mechanism of these novel physical phenomena remains unresolved. Herein, the magnetism and magnetic structure of CeSb-related Kondo lattice semimetal (CLS) is investigated via neutron diffraction measurements. In contrast with CeSb, CLS exhibits several outstanding features of the magnetism and magnetic structure. CLS shows the type-I antiferromagnetic structure, in which its ferromagnetic layers are antiferromagnetically stacked along the interplane direction with the periodicity of a unit cell. Moreover, a ferromagnetic component is clearly observed without applying any magnetic field, and various magnetic structures strongly compete with each other along with a large temperature hysteresis. These findings may facilitate the in-depth understanding of the novel physical phenomena recently observed in CeSb.
