Suppression of ferromagnetism in the LaVxCr1-xGe3 system

Abstract: We report synthesis of hexagonal LaVxCr1-xGe3 (x = 0-0.21, 1.00) single crystals, and present a systematic study of this series by measurements of temperature and field dependent magnetic susceptibility, magnetization, resistivity, and specific heat. Ferromagnetism has been observed for x = 0-0.21, and the system manifests a strong axial anisotropy in its ordered state. The decrease of the saturated moment and the effective moment per Cr with the increase of V-concentration suggests this is an itinerant ferromagnetic system. The Curie temperature declines monotonically as the V-concentration increases. Single crystalline samples could only be grown for x-values up to 0.21 for which the transition temperature was suppressed down to 36 K. Although we could not fully suppress TC via V-substitution, for x = 0.16, we performed magnetization measurements under pressure. The ferromagnetic state is suppressed under pressure at an initial rate of dTC/dp = -11.7 K/GPa and vanishes by 3.3 GPa.