SPECIFIC-HEAT, RESISTIVITY AND NEUTRON-SCATTERING STUDIES IN THE KONDO LATTICE CENI2GE2

Specific heat, resistivity and inelastic neutron scattering experiments are reported, which demonstrate that CeNi2Ge2 exhibits a heavy-fermion groundstate which is neither magnetic nor superconducting. The specific heat coefficient γ(T) reaches 350 mJ/K2 mol and exhibits a peak at 0.4 K showing that coherence effects become important at low temperatures. The magnetic relaxation rates as measured via the line width in inelastic neutron scattering experiments are strongly enhanced and deviate from a Korringa law behaviour. The Kondo temperature TK 30 K was determined from the magnetic relaxation rates and from the specific heat data.