Pressure and concentration tuning of CeNixPt1-x compounds

The intermetallic alloys CeNixPt1-x are examples of heavy-fermion compounds that can be tuned to the quantum critical point (QCP) by applying hydrostatic pressure or by changing the ratio between Pt and Ni constituents (chemical pressure). The pure CePt compound orders ferromagnetically (FM). With increasing Ni content, FM order is suppressed and disappears completely at x=0.95 possibly indicating a QCP. CeNi is a Pauli paramagnet. At the same time, these compounds have orthorhombic CrB type of crystal structure for all compositions. We compare the effects of hydrostatic and chemical pressure on the magnetic properties of the series CeNixPt1-x in the whole concentration range between x=0 and 1 and, in particular, in the vicinity of the QCP. We have performed measurements of the magnetization in the temperature range 2.5-300 K in magnetic field up to 0.1 T under hydrostatic pressure up to 1.2 GPa for CeNixPt1-x samples with different Ni content