Weak electron correlations and itinerant <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>5</mml:mn> <mml:mi>f</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> electrons in <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mr
Uranium compounds have long been of significant interest in condensed matter physics due to their diverse and often exotic properties, including heavy-fermion behavior, non-Fermi-liquid characteristics, quantum criticality, and unconventional superconductivity. These phenomena arise from the complex interplay between crystal structure, hybridization of localized $5f$ electrons with conduction electrons, and electron-electron correlations. Here, we present a comprehensive study of the electronic structure of ${\mathrm{UFeGa}}_{5}$, a layered uranium intermetallic compound, using high-resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Three-dimensional electronic structure of ${\mathrm{UFeGa}}_{5}$ was systematically studied and fine structures of the $\mathrm{U}5f$ bands near the Fermi energy were clearly resolved. Our results reveal that ${\mathrm{UFeGa}}_{5}$ exhibits a predominantly itinerant nature of $5f$ electrons, with strong band dispersion and significant contributions to the Fermi surface. Theoretical calculations assuming itinerant $5f$ electrons are in excellent agreement with the experimental ARPES data, confirming the weak electron correlation effects in this compound. Temperature-dependent ARPES measurements further demonstrate that the $f$ electrons retain itinerant across the studied temperature range (7.5 to 100 K).
Authors
- Dengpeng Yuan
- Qunqing Hao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6788-3774)
- Zhengtai Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3328-165X)
- Dawei Shen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2402-7956)
- Yulu He (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-5634-0518)
- Wei Feng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8159-0732)
- Xinchun Lai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8170-9032)
- Qiuyun Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1866-1125)
- Subei Tan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9869-6074)
- Xuwen He
- Yaobo Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4662-7752)
- X. C. Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8320-6159)
- Yi Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0251-4374)
- Bo Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1312-4048)
- Qin Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2780-4530)
- Yun Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-0642-712X)
- Mao Ye (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3298-4724)
- Jishan Liu
- Xuebing Luo
Institutions
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (CN)
- Science and Technology on Surface Physics and Chemistry Laboratory (CN)
- National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (CN)
- Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility
Publication Details
- Journal
- Physical review. B./Physical review. B
- Published
- 2025-11-07
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1103/8jss-xdxp
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Rare-earth and actinide compounds
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.26