Magnetism of fine particles of Kondo lattices, obtained by high-energy ball-milling

Abstract

Despite intense research in the field of strongly correlated electron behavior for the past fewdecades, there has been very little effort to understand this phenomenon in nanoparticles ofthe Kondo lattices. In this paper, we review the results of our investigation on the fineparticles () of some of the alloys obtained by high-energy ball-milling, to bring out thatthis synthetic method paves a way to study strong electron correlations innanocrystals of such alloys. We primarily focus on the alloys of the seriesCeRu2 − xRhxSi2, lying at different positions in Doniach’s magnetic phase diagram. WhileCeRu2Si2, a bulkparamagnet, appears to become magnetic (of a glassy type) below about 8 K in fine particle form, inCeRh2Si2, anantiferromagnet (TN = 36 K) in bulk form, magnetism is destroyed (at least down to 0.5 K) in fine particles. In the alloyCeRu0.8Rh1.2Si2, at the quantum critical point known to exhibit non-Fermi liquid behavior in the bulkform, no long range magnetic ordering is found.