Perspective on heavy-electron and Kondo-lattice systems from high pressure studies

The application of modest pressures p to rare-earth and actinide-based heavy-electron / Kondo-lattice materials produces significant changes in both their temperature dependent electrical resistivity ρ{variant} and electronic specific heat γ. For a given compound, γ(p, T=0) appears to scale inversely with a characteristic temperature associated with features in ρ{variant}(p, T). These changes can be understood as arising from the strongly volume-dependent competition of interactions giving rise to the heavy-mass ground state. Similar behavior also may be found in transition-metal compounds, e.g., MnSi. © 1989