Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Magnetocaloric materials

Strained relations

Nature Materials volume 12, pages 11–12 (2013)Cite this article

Subjects

The magnetocaloric effect could form the basis for efficient refrigeration technologies. The finding that large and reversible magnetocaloric effects can be induced through a strain-mediated feedback mechanism may expand the range of available magnetocaloric materials.

An area of modern life in which thermodynamics plays a central role is refrigeration. Its widespread use in household and industrial applications has driven a need for cheap and environmentally friendly processes that might replace the costly approaches based on mechanical work. One promising strategy is to take advantage of the thermodynamic changes associated with the varying magnetization of materials exposed to a magnetic field, a phenomenon known as the magnetocaloric effect. This requires magnetic materials with suitable intrinsic properties that maximize the thermal response associated with the change in magnetization1. Although magnetic refrigeration has become a standard technique in low-temperature physics, the relatively few materials with large magnetocaloric properties at higher temperatures has restricted its use in commercial applications.

This is a preview of subscription content

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Figure 1: Phase diagrams describing the change in magnetization (M) as a function of temperature (T).

References

  1. Franco, V., Blázquez, J. S., Ingale, B. & Conde, A. Annu. Rev. Mater. Res. 42, 305–342 (2012).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Moya, X. et al. Nature Mater. 12, 52–58 (2013).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Pecharsky, V. K. & Gschneidner, K. A. Jr Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 4494–4497 (1997).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Gutfleisch, O. et al. Adv. Mater. 21, 821–842 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Liu, J. et al. Nature Mater. 11, 620–626 (2012).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Fähler, S. et al. Adv. Eng. Mater. 14, 10–19 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Affiliations

  1. Per Nordblad is at the Department of Engineering Sciences, Uppsala University, Box 534, SE-751 21 Uppsala, Sweden

    Per Nordblad

Authors
  1. Per Nordblad
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Per Nordblad.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Nordblad, P. Strained relations. Nature Mater 12, 11–12 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3516

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3516

Further reading

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing