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The crystal structure of a new low-temperature modification of CePdAl was determined from single-crystal x-ray data: CePdAl-type; space group Pmmn (No. 59), Z = 14, oP42, a = 0.426 07 nm, b = 2.887 58 nm, c = 0.721 90 nm; RF = 0.048. Physical properties of orthorhombic CePdAl are governed by a mutual balance of the RKKY interaction, the Kondo effect and crystalline electric field splitting, resulting in antiferromagnetic ordering below ≈2.5 K. Electronic transport is reminiscent of a textbook-like Kondo lattice, which comes along with a significant negative magnetoresistance of more than 50% at low temperatures. Although geometrical frustration is absent when compared to the hexagonal modification of CePdAl, the ordering temperature TN is even smaller. A possible cause is enhanced Kondo interactions.

Novel representatives REPt3Si (RE = La, Pr, Nd, Sm and Gd) of the CePt3B type have been synthesized and characterized by means of Rietveld x-ray powder diffraction. Measurements of the magnetic susceptibility, isothermal magnetization, temperature dependent specific heat as well as temperature and field dependent resistivity were employed to derive basic information on the low temperature behaviour. Long range antiferromagnetic order from 2.2 K (CePt3Si) to 15.1 K (GdPt3Si) was observed. PrPt3Si, however, is non-magnetic, at least down to 400 mK, as a consequence of crystalline electric field splitting of the non-Kramers ion Pr3+ in tetragonal symmetry. Whilst the ordering temperature of SmPt3Si appears to be almost unaffected in external fields up to 12 T, magnetic order in GdPt3Si, although twice as high as for the Sm homologue, is easily suppressed by external magnetic fields due to the absence of anisotropy.

The crystal structure of the U(Pd1−xFex)2Ge2 compounds with Fe content x = 0– 0.03 and the crystal and magnetic structure of U(Pd0.98Fe0.02)2Ge2 at high external pressures up to 4.5 GPa were studied by means of powder neutron diffraction in the temperature range 1.5–300 K. With increasing Fe content the values of the lattice parameters and interatomic distances change only slightly, but it is known from previous experiments that the magnetic structure changes drastically for x ≥ 0.015. In contrast to this, high external pressure modifies the crystal structure more significantly while the magnetic structure remains unchanged. The results obtained allow one to infer that drastic changes in the magnetic structure of the U(Pd1−xFex)2Ge2 compounds with increasing Fe content are a consequence of modification of the RKKY-type (RKKY standing for Ruderman, Kittel, Kasuya and Yosida) indirect exchange interaction due to the variation of the number of conduction electrons per U atom rather than a result of lattice contraction.

The magnetic ordering of the ternary intermetallic compound U(Pd1-xFex)2Ge2 (x = 0.01, 0.02) was studied by µSR in the temperature range T = 15-300 K. The low temperature state changes from the modulated longitudinal spin density wave LSDW (x = 0.01) with a propagation vector k = [0 0 3/4] (TN = 140 K) to a simple antiferromagnetic structure AF (x = 0.02) with k = [0 0 1] (TN = 140 K). In the AF phase (sample with x = 0.02) the uranium magnetic moment shows a monotonic temperature dependence. In the LSDW phase with k = [0 0 3/4] (sample with x = 0.01) the magnetic moments of uranium atoms located in two magnetically nonequivalent positions (0 0 0) and (0 0 1) have different temperature dependences. One moment assumes a maximum at Tm1 = 50 K, while the other one does not display any peculiarities. The results are discussed within a model of the superposition of a square and sine modulation and are compared with neutron diffraction data. The observed peculiar temperature behaviour of the moments is connected with the temperature variation of the initial phase of the LSDW modulation by Δ = 0.2 rad.

The ferromagnetic heavy fermion compound Ce3RhSi3 was studied by means of electrical resistivity, Hall effect, thermoelectric power and Nernst coefficient measurements. Below T ≈ 30 K, all the transport characteristics were found to behave anomalously as functions of temperature and magnetic field. In particular, the Hall and Nernst coefficients at low temperatures exhibit pronounced and strongly field-dependent maxima, likely possessing the same microscopic origin, which however cannot be captured by available theoretical models.