Suppression of Thermal Conductivity via Singlet-Dominated Scattering in TmFeO₃

2025/07/16 by McLanahan, M. L., Lederman, D., Ramirez, A. P.
#FOS: Physical sciences #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)

paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2507.12608

Abstract

We measured the thermal conductivity of the rare-earth orthoferrites, RFeO₃, where R = Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, and Yb and see an anomalous strong suppression for TmFeO₃. Using a Debye thermal transport model, we demonstrate that this suppression is due to resonant scattering between phonons and the Tm³⁺ 4f singlet crystal field levels. The implications of these results are discussed in context of thermal conductivity studies in quantum magnets.

Citations

• Origin of the hidden energy scale and the f-ratio in geometrically frustrated magnets
• Glass-like thermal conductivity and narrow insulating gap of EuTiO₃
• Giant shifts of crystal-field excitations in ErFeO3 driven by internal magnetic fields

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