Electronic transport properties of the semimetallic heavy fermion YbBiPt

The electronic transport properties of YbBiPt are examined in the temperature range 4–325 K to gain insight into the electronic structure of this compound. The magnitude of the strongly magnetic-field-dependent Hall effect is consistent with a semimetallic electronic structure. The data place an upper limit on the carrier concentration of $6\times {10}^{20}{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{o}\mathrm{l}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{s}/\mathrm{c}\mathrm{m}}^3.$ The thermoelectric power (TEP) is dominated by a large phonon-drag peak below 100 K, while above 200 K the TEP is dominated by a large linear-in-temperature contribution. The temperature-dependent resistivity manifests very little indication of a magnetic scattering contribution. These characteristics indicate the YbBiPt is a low-carrier concentration semimetal. It appears that this low-carrier conducting state is closely tied to the massively renormalized electronic state evident in this compound below 1 K.