Large refrigeration capacity in a Ni48Co1Mn37In14 polycrystalline alloy with low thermal hysteresis

Abstract

For Ni–Mn–In based alloys, simultaneously achieving large magnetic field-induced transformation temperature shift and low thermal hysteresis is of vital significance to obtain significant magnetocaloric properties. In this work, we employ low content Co doping to tune the magnetostructural transformation parameters and demonstrate large inverse magnetocaloric effect in a Ni48Co1Mn37In14 alloy. It is shown that 1% Co doping confers a strong magnetic field dependence of transformation temperature, i.e., 7.2 KT−1, giving rise to a wide refrigeration temperature window of 34 K under the magnetic field change of 5 T. Together with relatively low thermal hysteresis, i.e., ~8 K, giant effective refrigeration capacity up to 284 Jkg−1 is achieved under the magnetic field change of 5T. The present work is expected to offer some instructions for the design of Ni–Mn-based alloys with excellent magnetocaloric properties.