11.

4 Rare Earth Magnetism 667

For the heavy rare earths (from Gd through Tm) g > 1, and the net
f-c exchange which is roughly

(11.86)

may be either ferro- or antiferromagnetic. The sign of 4ffc

is imma-
terial for the RKKY interaction which contains but it matters
very much for the overall nature of the system. Systems with >0
are AFM coupling Kondo lattices in which the formation of a heavy
fermionic phase with a large Fermi surface is at least an option. Even if
the system forms an RKKY ordered phase, above its transition temper-
ature it may still behave as a dense Kondo system showing a resistivity
increment Ap oc ln(T/TK). On the other hand, if < 0, then the
system is destined to become an RKKY magnet with a small Fermi sea,
and a very ordinary effective mass, and it does not show any of the
anomalies which are customarily associated with the name “Kondo”.
In other words, though periodic Kondo systems are capable of RKKY
behaviour, there should exist a class of RKKY magnets which do not
have an underlying Kondo physics58.
Looking at (11.86), we see that the hybridization term is large when-
ever one of the f-levels is near to the Fermi level. It is then likely that
those RE ions will form Kondo lattices, which are known to show va-
lence instability, at least in certain environments. The list includes Ce,
Sm, Eu, Tm, and Yb. For the latter two, it is an additional argument
that their (g - 1) is quite small, which suppresses the second term of
(11.86). Ce3+ and Yb3+ are well-known Kondo impurities, and Sm im-
purities have also been reported to show Kondo effect [164]. However,
elemental Yb is divalent and non-magnetic.
As far as non-valence-fluctuating rare earths (i.e., the majority of
the elements) are concerned, we follow [169] in taking the view that the
very fact that de Gennes scaling is reasonably well obeyed, indicates
that the direct exchange term dominates. It should then follow that in
the second half of the series, the net f - c interaction is ferromagnetic.
58The impurity Hamiltonian (11.27) with a FM coupling does not lead to a Kondo
effect: there is no In T term in the high-T resistivity, etc.