Surface and bulk components of electrical conductivity in the (presumably special topological) Kondo insulator SmB6 at lowest temperatures

Abstract: Samarium hexaboride (SmB6) has recently been considered to be a topological Kondo insulator (TKI), the first strongly correlated electron system to exhibit topological surface conduction states. In this contribution, results of electrical resistivity measurements between 80 K and 0.08 K of various SmB6 single crystalline samples are presented, analyzed and discussed. The received results imply that the residual conductivity of SmB6 below about 4 K is of non-activated (metallic-like) nature. It is shown that this metallic-like behavior can be attributed both to surface (2D) conduction states, as may be expected in case of a topological insulator, as well as to the highly correlated many-body (3D) bulk ground state which is formed within the gap of this compound. From this it follows that in SmB6, where surface conductivity states are clearly present, there is in parallel also a bulk contribution to residual electrical conductivity originating from the strongly correlated electron system with valence fluctuations. This raises the question whether SmB6 does not form a new / special type of topological insulator in which in the energy gap besides the surface conduction states, there is also a conducting narrow in-gap band originating from the bulk strongly correlated electron system.