Nonlinear cyclotron resonance of rare-earth semimetals

Abstract

The cyclotron resonance is the best way to determine the effective masses of conductors and it is interesting to compare them with other effective masses determined by the de Haas oscillations. According to Kohn's theorem, they are not necessarily coincident with each other because an electron-electron correlation in the strongly correlated electron systems contributes to only the case of the de Haas oscillations. This argument has been studied in the case of organic conductors. On the other hand, it has been difficult to observe the cyclotron resonance absorption in rare-earth semimetals due to necessity of high frequency equipment, high magnetic field, very low temperature and high quality specimen. We have succeeded in observing cyclotron resonance in some rare-earth monopnictide compounds RX (R=rare earth atom, X=pnictgen atom) with NaCl type crystal structure and discussed the relationship between two kinds of masses of these materials. As reference materials, nonmagnetic LaSb and PrSb were also studied. In these cases, we have found new nonlinear resonance lines in addition to the normal cyclotron resonance whose resonance frequencies are linear with respect to magnetic field intensity. We ascribe this effect to the Doppler shift caused by coupling of cyclotron motion of carriers with the Alfven wave propagating in the material.