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Pressure tuning of an ionic insulator into a heavy electron metal: an infrared study of YbS
M Matsunami1, H Okamura, A Ochiai
1Institute for Solid State Physics, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa 277-8581, Japan. matunami@spring8.or.jp
Abstract:
Optical conductivity [sigma(omega)] of YbS has been measured under pressure up to 20 GPa. Below 8 GPa, sigma(omega) is low since YbS is an insulator with an energy gap between a fully occupied 4f state and an unoccupied conduction (c) band. Above 8 GPa, however, sigma(omega) increases dramatically, developing a Drude component due to heavy carriers and characteristic infrared peaks. It is shown that increasing pressure has caused an energy overlap and hybridization between the c band and 4f state, thus driving the initially ionic and insulating YbS into a correlated metal with heavy carriers.
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