Sorting out specific characters of the filled skutterudites from those common to the cage compounds with a low fractional ratio of a rare earth element.

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In the filled skutterudite compounds (F-Sk: RT4X12) with a rare earth element (R) surrounded by a caged made of twelve pnictogens, various unpredictable novel behaviors have been found. Several factors, such as the enhanced hybridization of conduction electrons with 4f electrons by confining rare earth ions with in the pnictogen cage, have been sorted out as the reasons why such behaviors are realized in F-Sk compounds.To advance the study of new caged compounds exhibiting novel features more efficiently, we have investigated several F-Sk single crystals for the first time which had never been investigated due to the difficulty in grown single crystals at ambient pressure. We have also studied the basic physical properties of several other caged compounds with and without cubic crystal symmetry for the first time. Based on their systematic comparison, we have tried to sort out the specific characters of F-Sk from those common to the cage compounds.