Recent advances in the microstructure design of materials for near room temperature magnetic cooling (invited)

Successful operation of a magnetic cooling device depends crucially on the performance of active magnetic refrigerant material. Extensive research activity has been concentrated on optimizing the magnetic properties of these materials by chemical composition modification. Here, it is shown how the design of appropriate microstructure can be used to control the magnetic properties as well as mechanical stability of refrigerant materials experiencing a first-order magnetic phase transition. In particular, introducing porosity in LaFe13-xSix alloys provides long-term stability by sacrificing only a small fraction of the magnetocaloric effect and results in the desired reduction of the magnetic and thermal hysteresis by a factor of 5, as compared to bulk alloys. Reducing crystallite size down to the nanometer range is shown to substantially lower magnetic hysteresis. On the other hand, the magnetocaloric effect is weakened by about 40% and 60% in alloys with grain size of 70 and 44 nm, respectively. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3540372]