Magnetocaloric effect in rare-earth intermetallics: Recent trends

Magnetocaloric effect (MCE) is the change in isothermal magnetic entropy (ΔSm)and adiabatic temperature (ΔTad) that accompany magnetic transitions in materials during the application or the removal of magnetic field under adiabatic conditions. The physics of MCE gets enriched by correlated spin-lattice degrees of freedom. This phenomenon has been actively investigated over the past few decades as it holds a promise for an alternate method of refrigeration/heat pumping. This has already resulted in several reviews on this topic. This paper focusses on some recent trends in this field and prospects of using rare-earth-based materials as active magnetic refrigerants over a broad temperature range that includes gas liquefaction and near-room temperature refrigeration/heating.