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Inverse magnetocaloric effect in ferromagnetic Ni–Mn–Sn alloys

Nature Materials volume 4, pages 450–454 (2005)Cite this article

Abstract

The magnetocaloric effect (MCE) in paramagnetic materials has been widely used for attaining very low temperatures by applying a magnetic field isothermally and removing it adiabatically. The effect can also be exploited for room-temperature refrigeration by using giant MCE materials1,2,3. Here we report on an inverse situation in Ni–Mn–Sn alloys, whereby applying a magnetic field adiabatically, rather than removing it, causes the sample to cool. This has been known to occur in some intermetallic compounds, for which a moderate entropy increase can be induced when a field is applied, thus giving rise to an inverse magnetocaloric effect4,5. However, the entropy change found for some ferromagnetic Ni–Mn–Sn alloys is just as large as that reported for giant MCE materials, but with opposite sign. The giant inverse MCE has its origin in a martensitic phase transformation that modifies the magnetic exchange interactions through the change in the lattice parameters.

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Figure 1: Temperature dependence of the magnetization of Ni0.50Mn0.50–xSnx alloy in low and high external magnetic fields.
Figure 3: Magnetic field dependence of the magnetization near the martensitic transformation for x = 0.13.
Figure 2: Magnetic field dependence of the magnetization near the martensitic transformation for x = 0.15.
Figure 4: Entropy change ΔS for x = 0.15 and x = 0.13.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (GK277) and CICyT (Spain), project MAT2004-1291. X.M. acknowledges support from DGICyT (Spain).

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  1. All authors contributed equally to this work.

Affiliations

  1. Fachbereich Physik, Experimentalphysik, Universität Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, D-47048, Germany

    Thorsten Krenke, Eyüp Duman, Mehmet Acet & Eberhard F. Wassermann

  2. Departament d'Estructura i Constituents de la Matèria, Facultat de Física, Universitat de Barcelona, Diagonal 647, Barcelona, E-08028, Catalonia, Spain

    Xavier Moya, Lluis Mañosa & Antoni Planes

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  1. Thorsten Krenke
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  2. Eyüp Duman
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Correspondence to Mehmet Acet.

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Krenke, T., Duman, E., Acet, M. et al. Inverse magnetocaloric effect in ferromagnetic Ni–Mn–Sn alloys. Nature Mater 4, 450–454 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1395

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