Magnetic properties and magnetocaloric effects in HoPd intermetallic

A large reversible magnetocaloric effect accompanied by a second order magnetic phase transition from PM to FM is observed in the HoPd compound. Under the magnetic field change of 0-5 T, the magnetic entropy change -ΔS_M^max and the refrigerant capacity RC for the compound are evaluated to be 20 J/(kg · K) and 342 J/kg, respectively. In particular, large -ΔS_M^max (11.3 J/(kg · K)) and RC (142 J/kg) are achieved under a low magnetic field change of 0-2 T with no thermal hysteresis and magnetic hysteresis loss. The large reversible magnetocaloric effect (both the large -ΔS_M and the high RC) indicates that HoPd is a promising material for magnetic refrigeration at low temperature.