Agradecimentos: The authors are grateful to S. Araujo for the EDS measurements. D.P. Rojas is grateful to FCT, Portugal, for a Postdoctoral grant SFRH/BPD/9312/2002. This work was supported by POCTI (Portugal) under contract POCTI/CTM/38320/2001 and by CNPq, FAEPEX-Unicamp and FAPESP, Brazilian agencies Ver menos

Abstract: We report results on transport and magnetic properties for the title compound. Spin-glass (SG) features arise below the temperature of T-f = 2.8 K for Ce2NiIn3, as determined from ac and dc magnetic susceptibility. The low temperature specific heat presents an anomaly with a maximum located near T-f which is unusual when compared with other compounds of the type Ce2TX3 (where T = transition metal and X = Si, Ge) and canonical SG systems. The anisotropic SG behavior or inhomogeneous magnetic ordering have been proposed as the possible causes for the arising magnetic ground state. The results for Ce2NiIn3 are compared with those obtained for Ce2NiGe3, isotypic compound Ver menos