Physical properties of binary cerium gallides and ternary cerium-germanium gallides

Binary and tenary cerium-gallium germanides have been synthesized by arc melting and the existence of five binary cerium-gallium compounds and four ternary phases Ce2Ge5.4Ga1.6, Ce4Ge7Ga4, CeGeGa and Ce5GeGa2 has been confirmed from X-ray powder diffraction analysis. Low temperature magnetization and electrical resistivity data in the temperature range from 2 to 300 K reveal the absence of magnetic ordering except for CeGa, which was found to be antiferromagnetic below T(N) = 7 K. Effective paramagnetic moments in all cases are close to a tripositive behaviour of cerium with a small tendency for the effective moments in the binary cerium gallides to move towards smaller values when the gallium content decreases in close correspondence with the interatomic cerium distances