Magnetic and electrical property study on La-diluted Kondo lattice CeIn₃

Understanding the Kondo lattice system is challenging because of the complexity of the Ruderman–Kittel–Kasuya–Yosida (RKKY) interactions and the interplay of the Kondo effect with the crystal electric field (CEF). To understand the interplay between the competing interactions, high-quality single crystals of La-substituted CeIn₃ were synthesized by the flux method, and their single-impurity Kondo scattering effects were studied in comparison with the Kondo lattice behavior of CeIn₃. The magnetic susceptibility reveals a scaling behavior above T_N, indicating that local Kondo impurity scattering is important for the entire La_1−xCe_xIn₃ series. The CEF gap estimated from the specific heat and neutron scattering experiments did not vary significantly with La substitution. Although the localized f-electron behavior observed in the La_1−xCe_xIn₃ series is consistent with the de Haas-van Alphen (dHvA) and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) results in previous reports, the appearance of a coherent peak in the resistivity at ~ 47 K suggests that a mild coherence effect coexists in the prototypical antiferromagnetic (AFM) compound CeIn₃.