Magnetocaloric effect in rare-earth intermetallics: Recent trends

Magnetocaloric effect (MCE) is the change in isothermal magnetic entropy (Delta S (m)) and adiabatic temperature (Delta T (ad)) that accompany magnetic transitions in materials during the application or the removal of magnetic field under adiabatic conditions. The physics of MCE gets enriched by correlated spin-lattice degrees of freedom. This phenomenon has been actively investigated over the past few decades as it holds a promise for an alternate method of refrigeration /heat pumping. This has already resulted in several reviews on this topic. This paper focusses on some recent trends in this field and prospects of using rare-earth-based materials as active magnetic refrigerants over a broad temperature range that includes gas liquefaction and near-room temperature refrigeration /heating.