Magnetocaloric effect in charge ordered Nd0.5Ca0.5MnO3 manganite

Abstract

The magnetocaloric effect (MCE) has been observed in three well-defined temperature intervals (region I: 2–115 K, region II: around charge order transition TCO, and region III: around room temperature) in polycrystalline Nd0.5Ca0.5MnO3 (NCMO) manganite system showing a first order (CO) transition at a temperature, TCO∼250 K. The magnitude of ΔSM(H) increases monotonically with applied magnetic field but does not reach saturation even at fields as high as 60 kOe. In the three given temperature regions, negligible magnetic and thermal hysteresis are found, which satisfies the requirements of using NCMO as an effective magnetocaloric material for magnetic refrigeration.