Giant elastocaloric effect in directionally solidified Ni–Mn–In magnetic shape memory alloy

Abstract

We have studied the giant elastocaloric effect of directionally solidified Ni–Mn–In magnetic shape memory alloys (MSMAs) near room temperature. The textured microstructure significantly enhances the ductility of Ni–Mn-based MSMAs, which allows obtaining the martensitic transition characteristics of polycrystalline samples in a uniaxial stress field. A significant cooling level of about 4 K is measured when the stress is released. The experimentally measured temperature changes are found to be in good agreement with the theoretically calculated values.