Barocaloric properties of quaternary Mn3(Zn,In)N for room-temperature refrigeration applications

Abstract

The magnetically frustrated manganese nitride antiperovskite family displays significant changes of entropy under hydrostatic pressure that can be useful for the emerging field of barocaloric cooling. Here we show that barocaloric properties of metallic antiperovskite Mn nitrides can be tailored for room-temperature application through quaternary alloying. We find an enhanced entropy change of $|\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}{S}_{\mathrm{t}}|=37\phantom{\rule{4pt}{0ex}}\mathrm{J}\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}{\mathrm{K}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}{\mathrm{kg}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ at the ${T}_{t}=300\phantom{\rule{4pt}{0ex}}\mathrm{K}$ antiferromagnetic transition of quaternary ${\mathrm{Mn}}_{3}{\mathrm{Zn}}_{0.5}{\mathrm{In}}_{0.5}\mathrm{N}$ relative to the ternary end members. The pressure-driven barocaloric entropy change of ${\mathrm{Mn}}_{3}{\mathrm{Zn}}_{0.5}{\mathrm{In}}_{0.5}\mathrm{N}$ reaches $|\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}{S}_{\mathrm{BCE}}|=20\phantom{\rule{4pt}{0ex}}\mathrm{J}\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}{\mathrm{K}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}{\mathrm{kg}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ in 2.9 kbar. Our results open up a large phase space where compounds with improved barocaloric properties may be found.