The structural, magnetic, and magnetocaloric properties of In-doped Mn2−xCrxSb

Abstract

Mn2−xCrxSb exhibits an antiferromagnetic-ferrimagnetic transition of which the temperature can be changed by controlling the Cr concentration. Increasing the Cr content from x = 0.05 to 0.13 raises the transition temperature from about 180 K up to around room temperature. To suppress the inevitable ferromagnetic MnSb impurity phase, we partially replace Sb by In. Mn2−xCrxSb1−yIny alloys have an antiferromagnetic-ferrimagnetic transition and a narrow transition hysteresis and exhibit the inverse magnetocaloric effect. We examine the magnetocaloric effect from the magnetization and direct adiabatic temperature-change measurements.

Narrow transitional hysteresis in (Mn–Cr–Co)2Sb pnictides for room-temperature magnetic refrigeration

“…Studies on the inverse MCE have substantially increased in the last decade. Mn-based systems such as Heusler alloys [2,3], antiperovskites [6], pnictides [7][8][9][10][11][12] are particularly attractive materials showing inverse MCEs.…”

“…Coping means choosing favorable minorloop paths within the thermal or magnetic hysteresis loop so that the material can still be useful for refrigeration [6,13,14]. In the absence of hysteresis, the temperature-change ∆T is reversible and no losses are involved [5,11,12].…”

“…The Cr content can be adjusted to tune T t [10,15]. At some Cr content, T t can be adjusted to room temperature [10][11][12][22][23][24]. The disadvantage of these alloys is that they contain a MnSb impurity phase.…”

“…MnSb is hexagonal and ferromagnetic (FM) below T C = 585 K, and the compound has a strong uniaxial magnetic anisotropy [25]. Several studies have shown that this impurity phase can be suppressed by substituting Sb by In or Ga [11,12,15].…”

Low-field reversible magnetocaloric effect in Co-dopedMn-Cr-Sb alloys

“…[19,20,23,24] , 如图3(b)所示. 同时注意到, 5 T磁场下的 热温变与文献中报道的Mn 2 Sb基合金和NiMn基Heus-ler合金的结果进行了对比 [11][12][13][26][27][28] . 与文献中报道的 在2和5…”