A Pathway to Optimize the Properties of Magnetocaloric Mn2-xFexP1-yGey) for Magnetic Refrigeration

Published

February 29, 2016

Author(s)

D. M. Liu, Z. L. Zhang, S. L. Zhou, Qingzhen Huang, X. J. Deng, M. Yue, C. X. Liu, J. X. Zhang, Jeffrey W. Lynn

Abstract

Magnetocaloric materials can be useful in magnetic refrigeration applications, but to be practical the magnetorefrigerant needs to have a very large magnetocaloric effect (MCE) near room temperature for modest applied fields (<2 Telsa) with small hysteresis and magnetostriction, and should have a complete magnetic transition, be inexpensive, and environmentally friendly. One system that may fulfill these requirements ins Mn_xFe_2-xP_1-yGe_y, and we have used neutron diffraction, differential scanning calorimetry, and magnetization measurements to study the effects of both crystallite size and Mn and Ge location in the structure on the ordered magnetic moment, MCE, and hysteresis of the material. We reveal how to tune the properties, and show that Fe_0.83Mnd0.17^(P_0.74Ge_02.6) has a giant magnetocaloric effect (MCE) (35.5-1 K^-1) near room temperature and in low magnetic fields (<1.2 T), and small thermal hysteresis Δ}T_hys(<2 K). This material therefore is a good candidate for commercial magnetic refrigeration applications.

Citation

Journal of Alloys and Compounds

Volume

666

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

Magnetic Refrigeration, Magnetocaloric, Neutron diffraction, crystal structure, magnetic phase transition, Ferromagnet, Giant Entropy, magnetization

Citation

Liu, D. , Zhang, Z. , Zhou, S. , Huang, Q. , Deng, X. , Yue, M. , Liu, C. , Zhang, J. and Lynn, J. (2016), A Pathway to Optimize the Properties of Magnetocaloric Mn_2-xFe_xP_1-yGe_y) for Magnetic Refrigeration, Journal of Alloys and Compounds, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=910898 (Accessed October 27, 2025)