Fermi surface of a system with strong valence fluctuations: Evidence for a noninteger count of valence electrons in EuIr2Si2

We present de Haas-van Alphen (dHvA) measurements on an Eu-based valence-fluctuating system. EuIr2Si2 exhibits a temperature-dependent, noninteger europium valence with Eu2.8+ at low temperatures. The comparison of experimental results from our magnetic-torque experiments in fields up to 32 T and density functional theory band-structure calculations with localized 4 f electrons shows that the best agreement is reached for a Fermi surface based on a valence of Eu2.8+. The calculated quantum-oscillation frequencies for Eu3+ instead cannot explain all the experimentally observed frequencies. The effective masses, derived from the temperature dependence of the dHvA oscillation amplitudes, show not only a significant enhancement with masses up to 11 me (me being the free electron mass), but also a magnetic-field dependence of the heaviest mass. We attribute the formation of these heavy masses to strong correlation effects resulting from valence fluctuations of 4 f electrons being strongly hybridized with conduction electrons. The increase of the heavy masses with magnetic field likely results from the onset of the expected field-induced valence crossover that enhances these valence fluctuations but does not alter the Fermi-surface topology in the field range studied.