Publication Date
5-1-2020
Department
Ames Laboratory
Campus Units
Ames Laboratory
OSTI ID+
1630790
Report Number
IS-J-10225; IS-J 10229
DOI
10.1103/PhysRevB.101.174437
Journal Title
Physical Review B
Volume Number
101
Issue Number
17
First Page
174437
Abstract
Around discontinuous (first-order) magnetic phase transitions, the strong caloric response of materials to the application of small fields is widely studied for the development of solid-state refrigeration. Typically strong magnetostructural coupling drives such transitions and the attendant substantial hysteresis dramatically reduces the cooling performance. In this context, we describe a purely electronic mechanism which pilots a first-order paramagnetic-ferromagnetic transition in divalent lanthanide compounds and which explains the giant nonhysteretic magnetocaloric effect recently discovered in a Eu2In compound. There is a positive feedback between the magnetism of itinerant valence electrons and the ferromagnetic ordering of local f-electron moments, which appears as a topological change to the Fermi surface. The origin of this electronic mechanism stems directly from Eu's divalency, which explains the absence of a similar discontinuous transition in Gd2In.
DOE Contract Number(s)
AC02-07CH11358; EP/M028941/1
Language
en
Department of Energy Subject Categories
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
Publisher
Iowa State University Digital Repository, Ames IA (United States)
