Evidence for intermediate valence Sm ions in SmBa 2Cu 3O x

Abstract

Inelastic neutron scattering experiments have been performed to search for crystalline electric field (CEF) excitations in the high-T c superconductor SmBa 2Cu 3O x, however, we failed to detect any CEF transitions up to energy transfers of 100 meV. Instead we observed a behavior of the quasielastic line consistent with the characteristics of intermediate valence compounds, i.e., the line widths exhibit little dependence upon temperature and momentum transfer. A small anomaly of the quasielastic line width was found around T c.