Kondo effect from excited crystal-field levels inLa1−xPrxSn3compounds: Electrical resistivity

Abstract

Recent experimental data on the electrical resistivity of La/sub 1-x/Pr/sub x/Sn/sub 3/ compounds show some low-temperature anomalies which have suggested that La/sub 1-x/Pr/sub x/Sn/sub 3/ is the first observed singlet-ground-state system in which the Kondo effect arises from excited crystal-field levels. In order to examine the soundness of this hypothesis in this paper we calculate, taking consistently into account crystal-field and Kondo effects, the magnetic Kondo resistivity of dilute La/sub 1-x/Pr/sub x/Sn/sub 3/ compounds. Since our theoretical results show good agreement with the available experimental data, this calculation strongly supports the interpretation of La/sub 1-x/Pr/sub x/Sn/sub 3/ low-temperature behavior in terms of Kondo and crystalline electric field effects.