• Accepted Paper

Pressure-tuned flat-band instability and magnetic suppression in SmCrGe3

Wenli Bi, Cheng Peng, Francisco J. Canales, James Petri, Mingyu Xu, Dongzhou Zhang, and Weiwei Xie

Phys. Rev. B - Accepted 9 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/5stq-h3mj

Abstract

Pressure provides a clean and continuous route for tuning electronic structure and magnetic interactions in itinerant ferromagnets without introducing chemical disorder. Here, we report high-pressure structural, transport, and electronic structure studies of hexagonal ferromagnetic SmCrGe3, a rare-earth chromium germanide that exhibits giant uniaxial magnetocrystalline anisotropy and strong coupling between localized Sm 4f and itinerant Cr 3d electrons. Synchrotron high-pressure x-ray diffraction measurements reveal that the hexagonal P63/mmc structure remains stable up to 10 GPa without a crystallographic phase transition, indicating that the pressure-driven evolution is primarily electronic rather than structural in origin. High-pressure electrical resistance measurements show a nonmonotonic pressure dependence of the Curie temperature (TC) inferred from resistance anomaly, where TC initially decreases with pressure, followed by a slight recovery before the magnetic order is suppressed above 6.4 GPa. Concomitantly, a low-temperature resistance minimum emerges above 4.3 GPa, consistent with enhanced Kondo-like scattering associated with Sm 4f electrons. Density functional theory calculations on SmCrGe3 reveal a highly pressure-sensitive Cr-derived flat band near the Fermi level. Systematic lattice-parameter tuning calculations further show that anisotropic lattice compression, particularly along the crystallographic c, strongly modifies the flat-band position relative to the Fermi level. At approximately 4.7 GPa, the calculated magnetic moment collapses to nearly zero as the flat band crosses the Fermi level, signaling a pressure-induced instability of the itinerant ferromagnetic state. These results identify SmCrGe3 as a promising platform for studying the coupled evolution of fragile itinerant ferromagnetism, pressure-sensitive flat-band electronic structure, and emergent 4f-derived correlated scattering under pressure.

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