Magnetic and transport properties of YbRhIn and YbPdIn

Electrical resistivity, magnetization and specific heat have been measured on a single crystal of YbRhIn and polycrystals of LuRhIn and YbPdIn. It is confirmed that YbPdIn is a metal with a divalent Yb ion. For YbRhIn, the electrical resistivity increases with logarithmic temperature dependence with decreasing temperature and saturates at a constant value below 20 K, while that of the nonmagnetic reference LuRhIn shows typical metallic behavior. The magnetic susceptibility of YbRhIn indicates that the Yb ion is in the trivalent state. The irreversibility of the magnetization curves which is observed in the high pulsed magnetic field below 1.5 K suggests an increase of relaxation time in the magnetic system. The specific heat increases rapidly below 4 K with decreasing temperature down to 0.9 K and moves toward higher temperatures on application of a magnetic field. These facts suggest that some magnetic transition to either ferromagnetic or spin-glass state occurs at low temperature.