High-entropy bulk metallic glasses as promising magnetic refrigerants

Abstract

In this paper, the Ho20Er20Co20Al20RE20 (RE = Gd, Dy, and Tm) high-entropy bulk metallic glasses (HE-BMGs) with good magnetocaloric properties are fabricated successfully. The HE-BMGs exhibit a second-order magnetic phase transition. The peak of magnetic entropy change (ΔSMpk) and refrigerant capacity (RC) reaches 15.0 J kg−1 K−1 and 627 J kg−1 at 5 T, respectively, which is larger than most rare earth based BMGs. The heterogeneous nature of glasses also contributes to the large ΔSMpk and RC. In addition, the magnetic ordering temperature, ΔSMpk and RC can be widely tuned by alloying different rare earth elements. These results suggest that the HE-BMGs are promising magnetic refrigerant at low temperatures.