Quantum Interference in Disordered Ferromagnet U₂NiSi₃

Abstract

A single-crystalline sample of disordered ferromagnetic U2NiSi3 was investigated by means of electrical resistivity measurements under ambient and high hydrostatic pressure. Temperature dependences of the electrical resistivity clearly reveal interplay of the ferromagnetic ordering and quantum interference eects resulting from crystallographic disorder. Electronelectron interaction manifests itself as a T 0.5 increase in the in-plane and out-of-plane electrical resistivity below 5 K. Weak localization is observed solely in the ab-plane as a linear-in-T contribution to resistivity, which suggests that internal magnetic eld does not break the interference of scattered electron waves in ab-plane. Applied hydrostatic pressure does not aect the T 0.5 electronelectron interaction contribution, however it diminishes the impact of weak localization on the ab-plane resistivity.

Ferromagnetic ordering in single-crystalline U2RhSi3 with fully ordered crystal structure

“…It should be noted, however, that the studied polycrystal formed with a partly disordered crystal structure (see the Introduction), and hence the low-temperature features could be attributed to atomic disorder effects. It is worth recalling that very similar upturns in r(T) were recently observed for single crystals of U 2 CoSi 3 and U 2 NiSi 3 with the disordered AlB 2 -type crystal structures, and ascribed to quantum interference effects arising due to crystallographic disorder [2,23].…”

Interplay of atomic randomness and Kondo effect in disordered metallic conductor La2NiSi3

“…On the other hand, a minimum in the electrical resis tivity is also a characteristic feature of disordered metallic compounds. An increase in the electrical resistivity with decreasing temperature was observed in many compounds, both noncrystalline and crystalline, showing normal, super conducting, and magnetically ordered behavior [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. The common feature of these materials is atomic randomness, which leads to a reduction of the elastic scattering time e τ of conduction electrons.…”