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In the Kondo insulator samarium hexaboride (SmB6), strong correlation and band hybridization lead to an insulating gap and a diverging resistance at low temperature. The resistance divergence ends at about 3 kelvin, a behavior that may arise from surface conductance. We used torque magnetometry to resolve the Fermi surface topology in this material. The observed oscillation patterns reveal two Fermi surfaces on the (100) surface plane and one Fermi surface on the (101) surface plane. The measured Fermi surface cross sections scale as the inverse cosine function of the magnetic field tilt angles, which demonstrates the two-dimensional nature of the conducting electronic states of SmB6.

The article discusses research describing the authors' use of torque magnetometry to resolve the Fermi surface topology in the Kondo insulator samarium hexaboride (SmB6) via the de Haas–van Alphen (dHvA) effect. Topics include observations of quantum oscillations in Kondo insulator SmB6, the observed Fermi surfaces, which were shown to be two-dimensional (2D) and arise from the crystalline (101) and (100) surface planes, and the magnitude of magnetization.