Emergent Heavy-Fermion Physics in a Family of Topological Insulators R AsS ( R = Y, La, and Sm)

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Authors: Iñigo Robredo, Yuan Fang, L. Chen, Nazar Zaremba, Yurii M. Prots', Mitja Krnel, Markus Koenig, Mikel Iraola, Thomas Doert, Jeroen van den Brink, Claudia Felser, Qimiao Si A
+2 more Eteri Svanidze, Maia G. Vergniory
Cited by: 0
References: 72

Abstract

High Resolution Image Download MS PowerPoint Slide Realizing topological phases in strongly correlated materials has become a major impetus in condensed matter physics. Although many compounds are now classified as topological insulators, f -electron systems provide an especially fertile platform for emergent heavy-fermion phenomena driven by the interplay of topology and many-body effects. In this study, we examine the crystalline topology of a new R AsS series ( R = Y, La, Sm), revealing a structural variant from previous reports. We demonstrate that YAsS and SmAsS host hourglass fermions protected by glide symmetry. SmAsS notably exhibits a strong effective-mass enhancement, placing it alongside SmB 6 and YbB 12 as a material that exemplifies how the Kondo effects pin the correlated f -electron states near the Fermi energy and, consequently, renormalize the energy and mass scales of topological surface states without destroying their crystalline protection. This tunability establishes SmAsS as a bridge between weakly correlated topological materials and Kondo insulators. To capture these features, we construct a minimal model incorporating f -electron degrees of freedom, which reproduces the observed topological properties and predicts that the surface states survive in the correlated regime, albeit shifted in energy. Our work thus introduces a new family of correlated topological materials and forecasts the robustness of their surface states under Kondo correlations.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Topological Materials and Phenomena Rare-earth and actinide compounds Advanced Condensed Matter Physics

Publication details

Journal / source
Journal of the American Chemical Society
Volume
148
Issue
12
Pages
12979–12989
Publication date
10 March 2026
Language
EN