Magnetic properties and magnetocaloric effect in the RCu{sub 2}Si{sub 2} and RCu{sub 2}Ge{sub 2} (R = Ho, Er) compounds
- School of Material Science and Engineering, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin (China)
- Key laboratory of cryogenics, Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing (China)
- State Key Laboratory of Magnetism, Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter, Physics and Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing (China)
The magnetic properties and magnetocaloric effect (MCE) in RCu{sub 2}Si{sub 2} and RCu{sub 2}Ge{sub 2} (R = Ho, Er) compounds have been investigated. All these compounds possess an antiferromagnetic (AFM)-paramagnetic (PM) transition around their respective Neel temperatures. The RCu{sub 2}Si{sub 2} compounds undergo spin-glassy behavior above Neel temperature. Furthermore, a field-induced metamagnetic transition from AFM to ferromagnetic (FM) states is observed in these compounds. The calculated magnetic entropy changes show that all RCu{sub 2}Si{sub 2} and RCu{sub 2}Ge{sub 2} (R = Ho, Er) compounds, especially, ErCu{sub 2}Si{sub 2} exhibits large MCEs with no thermal hysteresis and magnetic hysteresis loss. The value of −ΔS{sub M}{sup max} reaches 22.8 J/Kg K for magnetic field changes from 0 to 5 T. In particular, for field changes of 1 and 2 T, the giant reversible magnetic entropy changes −ΔS{sub M}{sup max} are 8.3 and 15.8 J/kg K at 2.5 K, which is lower than the boiling point of helium. The low-field giant magnetic entropy change, together with ignorable thermal hysteresis and field hysteresis loss of ErCu{sub 2}Si{sub 2} compound is expected to have effective applications in low temperature magnetic refrigeration.
- OSTI ID:
- 22278029
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 115, Issue 7; Other Information: (c) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0021-8979
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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