New Aspects of Electronic Ordered States due tof²Configuration of Pr-Based Systems

Abstract

Strong hybridization between conduction electrons and f 2 electrons in a trivalent Pr ion is a recent attractive subject. For example, the Pr-filled skutterudite compounds have been extensively studied. Pr(Ru 1−x Rh x ) 4 P 12 exhibits the reentrant-like behavior of the metal-nonmetal transition, and PrFe 4 P 12 the heavy-fermion state followed by the nonmetallic ordering. In this article, we review briefly these phenomena characterized by the staggered structures of the totally symmetric order parameters of f 2 state. We also demonstrate the higher-order magnetic scattering of polarized neutron to investigate quantum state levels in the f electron systems, which is expected to be carried out at the pulsed neutron facility J-PARC MLF.