Intermediate valence state in YbB4revealed by resonant x-ray emission spectroscopy

Abstract

We report the temperature dependence of the Yb valence in the geometrically frustrated compoundYbB4from 12 to 300 K using resonant x-ray emission spectroscopy at the YbLα1transition. We find that the Yb valence,v, is hybridized between thev = 2 andv = 3 valence states, increasing fromv=2.61±0.01at 12 K tov=2.67±0.01at 300 K, confirming thatYbB4is a Kondo system in the intermediate valence regime. This result indicates that the Kondo interaction inYbB4is substantial, and is likely to be the reason whyYbB4does not order magnetically at low temperature, rather than this being an effect of geometric frustration. Furthermore, the zero-point valence of the system is extracted from our data and compared with other Kondo lattice systems. The zero-point valence seems to be weakly dependent on the Kondo temperature scale, but not on the valence change temperature scaleT_v.

Keywords: Kondo physics; frustrated magnetism; intermediate valence; x-ray spectroscopy.