Investigation of structural, magnetic, and magnetocaloric properties of nanocrystalline double perovskite Pr2CoMnO6

Abstract

We have investigated the structural, magnetic, and magnetocaloric properties of the nanocrystalline double perovskite Pr2CoMnO6 oxide prepared by the sol-gel method. The x-ray diffraction (XRD) using Rietveld refinement shows that the sample under investigation crystallizes into the orthorhombic crystal structure with Pbnm space group. The average crystallite size calculated using Debye-Scherer’s formula was found to be ∼17 nm. The scanning electron microscopy image shows that the particles formed were of almost uniform in size with particle size ∼192 nm. The temperature dependence magnetization data shows that sample has a paramagnetic to ferromagnetic phase transition around 173 K. A series of M-H isotherms were performed at a gap of 10 K around transition temperature. The maximum entropy change (∣ΔSmax∣) was found to be 1.98 Jkg−1 K−1 at a field change of 5 T and relative cooling power (RCP) was calculated to be 110 J kg−1. These obtained values are reasonably high and could be the potential material for magnetic refrigeration technology.