Abstract
SmB6 has recently been predicted to be a Topological Kondo Insulator, the first strongly correlated heavy fermion material to exhibit topological surface states. High quality crystals are necessary to investigate the topological properties of this material. Single crystal growth of the rare earth hexaboride, SmB6, has been carried out by the floating zone technique using a high power xenon arc lamp image furnace. Large, high quality single-crystals are obtained by this technique. The crystals produced by the floating zone technique are free of contamination from flux materials and have been characterised by resistivity and magnetisation measurements. These crystals are ideally suited for the investigation of both the surface and bulk properties of SmB6.
Highlights
SmB6 has recently been predicted to be a Topological Kondo Insulator, the first strongly correlated heavy fermion material to exhibit topological surface states
Since the proposal that SmB6 could exhibit topological behaviour, there has been intense activity amongst experimentalists looking for evidence of topological surface states through angle resolved photoemission (ARPES) experiments, and other related surface techniques[18,19,20,21,22]
This paper describes the crystal growth and characterisation of large, high quality singlecrystals of SmB6 by the floating zone technique using Xenon arc lamps
Summary
SmB6 has recently been predicted to be a Topological Kondo Insulator, the first strongly correlated heavy fermion material to exhibit topological surface states. Single crystal growth of the rare earth hexaboride, SmB6, has been carried out by the floating zone technique using a high power xenon arc lamp image furnace. The crystals produced by the floating zone technique are free of contamination from flux materials and have been characterised by resistivity and magnetisation measurements. These crystals are ideally suited for the investigation of both the surface and bulk properties of SmB6. In order to observe the topological surface states and perform detailed experiments on these materials, high quality single crystals are a prerequisite. The flux-grown crystals are usually very small in size (,1 mm edge) and most of the recent experimental work performed and published on SmB6 has been on crystals produced by this technique
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