Eur. Phys. J. B 84, 167-171 (2011)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2011-20121-3

Regular Article

Effect of partial Nd-substitution on the magnetic and magnetocaloric properties in spin-reorientation PrCo₄Al alloy

¹ School of material science and engineering, Nanchang Hangkong University, Nanchang 330063, P.R. China
² National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and Key Laboratory of Nanomaterials for Jiang Su Province, Department of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, P.R. China

^a e-mail: shengcanma801@gmail.com

Received: 16 February 2011
Received in final form: 10 July 2011
Published online: 10 November 2011

Abstract

Partial Nd-substitution effects on the magnetic and magnetocaloric properties in spin-reorientation Pr_1−xNd_xCo₄Al (x = 0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8) alloys are investigated. All these alloys undergo two successive spin-reorientation transitions. Accordingly, the successive positive and negative magnetic entropy changes (ΔS_M) for all these alloys are obtained. With the increase of Nd content, the spin reorientation transition temperatures increase from about 170 and 186 K for x = 0 to room temperature (276 and 294 K) for x = 0.8, covering a wide temperature interval. More interestingly, the values of positive ΔS_M values increase gradually from 0.1 to 0.9 J/kg K^-1, while the negative ΔS_M decrease from 1.3 to 0.2 J/kg K^-1 in the field change of 10 kOe. In addition, the series has an appreciable relative cooling power, which is therefore suitable to be used in a magnetic refrigerator.