Electrical resistivity and tunneling anomalies in CeCuAs2

The compound CeCuAs2 is found to exhibit negative temperature (T) coefficient of electrical resistivity (rho) under ambient pressure conditions in the entire T-range of investigation (45 mK to 300 K), even in the presence of high magnetic fields. Preliminary tunneling spectroscopic measurements indicate the existence of a psuedo-gap at least at low temperatures, thereby implying that this compound could be classified as a Kondo semi-conductor, though rho(T) interestingly is not found to be of an activated type.