Anomalous transport properties in thorium arsenosulphide crystals

Single crystals of thorium arsenosulphide have been grown and their electron transport properties have been examined to understand better the origin of the Kondo-like behaviour of the transport properties of ferromagnetic UAsSe and diamagnetic ThAsSe. The thorium arsenosulphide is a metallic conductor with the Hall carrier concentration equal to 1.5×1022e−/cm3. Its room temperature resistivity and thermoelectric power equal 32 μΩ cm and −3.7 μV/K, respectively. There is a Kondo-like temperature dependence of the resistivity and Hall coefficient observed with the Kondo components scaled with Kondo temperature ≈20 K. The Kondo resistivity of thorium arsenosulphide is lower by an order than that in ThAsSe. It is consistent with the hypothesis that this Kondo effect originates from anionsʹ substitutional disorder.