Electronic structure study of the charge-density-wave Kondo lattice CeTe₃

The behaviors of f electrons are crucial for understanding the rich phase diagrams and ground-state properties of heavy fermion (HF) systems. The complicated interactions between f electrons and conduction electrons largely enrich the basic properties of HF compounds. Here the electronic structure, especially the f-electron character, of the charge-density-wave (CDW) Kondo lattice compound CeTe 3 has been studied by high-resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. A weakly dispersive quasiparticle band near the Fermi level has been observed directly, indicating hybridization between f electrons and conduction electrons. Temperature-dependent measurements confirm the localized to itinerant transition of f electrons as the temperature decreases. Furthermore, an energy gap formed by one conduction band at low temperature is gradually closed with increasing temperature, which probably originates from the CDW transition at extremely high temperature. Additionally, orbital information of different electrons has also been acquired with different photon energies and polarizations, which indicates the anisotropy and diverse symmetries of the orbitals. Our results may help understand the complicated f-electron behaviors when considering its interaction with other electrons/photons in CeTe 3 and other related compounds.