Charge Kondo anomalies in PbTe doped with Tl impurities

Abstract

We investigate the properties of PbTe doped with a small concentration $x$ of Tl impurities acting as acceptors and described by Anderson impurities with negative onsite correlation energy. We use the numerical renormalization group method to show that the resulting charge Kondo effect naturally accounts for the unusual low temperature and doping dependence of normal state properties, including the self-compensation effect in the carrier density and the non-magnetic Kondo anomaly in the resistivity. These are found to be in good qualitative agreement with experiment. Our results for the Tl s-electron spectral function provide a new interpretation of point contact data.