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Giant low-field magnetocaloric effect of (Er,Y)Cr2Si2 compounds at ultra-low temperatures

Er-Y-Cr-Si化合物在极低温区的巨低场磁热效应

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Abstract

Low-temperature and low-field magnetocaloric materials with high magnetocaloric effect (MCE) performance have important prospects in applications such as gas liquefaction. A series of polycrystalline Er1−xYxCr2Si2 (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.8) samples were successfully synthesized by arc melting, showing giant low-field MCE. For the sample with x = 0.1, the compound shows the best MCE performance, with the appropriate working temperature down to 2 K. Furthermore, the maximum value of magnetic entropy change ((−ΔSM)max) and adiabatic temperature change ((ΔTad)max) under the field change of 0–1 T are calculated to be 19.2 J kg−1 K−1 and 4.3 K correspondingly. The value of (−ΔSM)max is the largest ever reported for intermetallic MCE materials below 20 K. The characteristic of magnetic phase transition is verified to be of second order on basis of Arrott plots, mean field theory and rescaled universal −ΔSM curves. The physical mechanism indicates that the great enhancement of (−ΔSM)max as large as 15.9% due to 10% Y substitution originates from the larger saturation magnetic moments and the smaller saturated magnetic fields.

摘要

高性能低温低场磁热材料在气体液化等领域具有重要的应用前 景. 本团队通过真空电弧熔炼的方式成功合成了一系列多晶 Er1−xYxCr2Si2 (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.8)样品, 这些材料表现出巨大的低场磁热效应. 其中Cr含量为0.1的样品显示出最好的低场磁热性能以及接近2 K的合 适的工作温区. 更重要的是, 在0–1 T的磁场变化下, 该样品的最大磁熵 变峰值以及最大绝热温变峰值分别高达19.2 J kg−1 K−1和4.3 K. 其磁熵 变峰值为目前已报道的20 K以下温区合金类磁热材料的最大值. 通过 Arrott曲线, 平均场理论以及约化磁熵变曲线等手段, 证明了磁相变特 征为二级相变. 物理机理分析表明, 10%的Y替代导致高达15.9%的磁熵 变峰值增强的原因在于替代样品所具有的大饱和磁化强度以及小饱和 磁场.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2021YFB3501202 and 2019YFB2005800), the Science Center of the National Science Foundation of China (52088101), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51871019, 52171170, 52130103, 51961145305, and 51971026), and the 111 Project (B170003).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Materials Genome Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, 100083, China

    Lei Xi  (奚磊), Xinqi Zheng  (郑新奇), Yawei Gao  (高亚伟), Chaofan Liu  (刘超凡), Dingsong Wang  (王鼎淞), Shuxian Yang  (杨淑娴), Baojie Jin  (靳宝杰), Mengyuan Zhu  (朱梦媛), Weifeng Xu  (许玮峯), Jianxin Shen  (申见昕), Jingyan Zhang  (张静言), He Huang  (黄河), Yanfei Wu  (吴燕飞), Fei Gu  (顾飞), Huiyu Shi  (史慧宇), Yixuan Tao  (陶怡璇) & Shouguo Wang  (王守国)

  2. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Anhui University, Hefei, 230601, China

    Lei Xi  (奚磊) & Shouguo Wang  (王守国)

  3. Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences & University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    Jiawang Xu  (许家旺), Shuxian Yang  (杨淑娴) & Baogen Shen  (沈保根)

  4. Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, Dongguan, 523808, China

    Jiawang Xu  (许家旺)

  5. Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Juping Xu  (徐菊萍) & Wen Yin  (殷雯)

  6. Spallation Neutron Source Science Center, Dongguan, 523803, China

    Juping Xu  (徐菊萍) & Wen Yin  (殷雯)

  7. Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, China

    Baogen Shen  (沈保根)

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  1. Lei Xi  (奚磊)
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  13. Jianxin Shen  (申见昕)
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Contributions

Zheng X designed the idea of this research. Xi L, Liu C, Wang D, Xu J, Yang S, Gao Y and Jin B performed the experiments including sample synthesis, magnetic measurements and XRD analysis. Xu J and Yin W performed the NPD experiments. Zhu M and Xu W performed the TEM experiments. Zheng X performed the data analysis and prepared the original manuscript. All the other authors contributed to the discussion.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Xinqi Zheng  (郑新奇) or Shouguo Wang  (王守国).

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Supplementary information

Supporting data are available in the online version of the paper.

Lei Xi graduated from the School of Materials Science and Engneering, University of Science and Technoloy Beijing (USTB), and currently he is a PhD student at the School of Materials Science and Engineering, Anhui University (AHU). His research interests focus on magnetic properties and the magnetocaloric effect of rare-earth-based compounds.

Xinqi Zheng recieved his PhD degree from the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. During his PhD study, he carried out research on neutron powder diffraction of magnetic materials as a guest researcher. Currently, he is an associate professor at the School of Materials Science and Engineering, USTB. His research interest focuses on rare-earth-based low-temperature magnetic refrigerant materials and abnormal magnetic thermal expansion materials.

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Xi, L., Zheng, X., Gao, Y. et al. Giant low-field magnetocaloric effect of (Er,Y)Cr2Si2 compounds at ultra-low temperatures. Sci. China Mater. 66, 2039–2050 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40843-022-2312-0

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