Magnetic behaviors and magnetocaloric effects in rare earth high-entropy amorphous/nanocrystalline alloys

Rare earth high-entropy alloys(RE-HEAs) exhibit great potential to be applied as refrigerants due to their good comprehensive magnetocaloric properties.In this work,octary GdTbDyHoErTmCoAl and GdTbDyHoErTmCoNi RE-HEAs with amorphous/nanocrystalline structure exhibiting comparable magnetocaloric effect were synthesized.Both RE-HEAs show a second-order magnetic phase transition in the temperature range of hydrogen liquefaction.Due to the complex magnetic interactions,a spin glasslike behavior at low temperatures is observed in the RE-HEAs.A superior magnetocaloric effect is obtained in the nanocrystalline GdTbDyHoErTmCoNi high-entropy alloy that is multiphase attributed to a stronger magnetic exchange interaction when compared with the other that exhibits single amorphous structure.Despite heterogeneous microstructure,homogeneous chemical distributions are observed in the partially crystallized high-entropy alloy.In addition,the magnetocaloric effect and magnetic transition behavior of rare earth medium-and high-entropy alloys,including the RE-HEAs in this study,are summarized and discussed.The results in this work provide a helpful guide for the design of RE-HEAs for hydrogen liquefaction applications with excellent magnetocaloric effects.