Magnetocaloric effect in rare earth doped compounds

In this work, the magnetocaloric effect in rare earth doped compounds involving more than one type of rare earth ion is discussed. The conventional molecular field theory is extended, in order to take into account the disorder effect on the spin-spin interaction. The model is applied to calculate the magnetocaloric effect in the compounds (GdxTb1-x)(5)Si-4 and (GdxPr1-x)(5)Si-4. The obtained results for the isothermal entropy change and the adiabatic temperature change upon variation of the magnetic field show the good trend of the available experimental data. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.