Suppression of ferromagnetism in the LaVxCr1-xGe3 system

We report the 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. 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 T-C 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 dT(C)/dp similar or equal to -11.7 K/GPa and vanishes by 3.3 GPa. The increase of the Rhodes-Wohlfarth ratio suggests that the ferromagnetism in this system evolves toward itinerant as the V concentration increases.