  Thermodynamic and transport properties of the La-diluted Kondo lattice
CeNi2Ge2 were studied in a wide temperature range. The Ce-rich alloys
Ce1-xLaxNi2Ge2 were found to exhibit distinct features of the coherent heavy
Fermi liquid. At intermediate compositions (0.7 <= x <= 0.9) non-Fermi liquid
properties have been observed, followed by the local Fermi liquid behavior in
the dilute limit. The 4f-electron contribution to the specific heat was found
to follow the predictions of the Kondo impurity model both in the local as well
as coherent regimes, with the characteristic Kondo temperature decreasing
rapidly from about 30 K for the parent compound CeNi2Ge2 to about 1K in the
most dilute samples. The specific heat does not show any evidence for the
emergence of a new characteristic energy scale related to the formation of the
coherent Kondo lattice.
