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Abstract:
The Nernst effect and thermopower of the prototypical Yb-based
intermediate valence compound YbAl3 were investigated. Different to the
thermopower whose absolute values are enhanced with increasing
temperature and assume a broad maximum at 175 K, the Nernst coefficient
of YbAl3 is enhanced only below T approximate to 75 K. While the two
quantities in the heavy-fermion compound CeCu2Si2 were recently found to
be related by the anomalous Hall mobility due to the local asymmetric
Kondo scattering, this theorem fails when being applied to YbAl3.
Rather, the thermopower of YbAl3 is well described by a simple
narrow-band model. We discuss the reason for this in terms of the
intermediate valence nature of YbAl3 that is conceptually different from
the local Kondo physics.
