화학공학소재연구정보센터
Nature Materials, Vol.5, No.10, 802-804, 2006
Ambient pressure colossal magnetocaloric effect tuned by composition in Mn1-xFexAs
The magnetocaloric effect (MCE) is the basis for magnetic refrigeration, and can replace conventional gas compression technology due to its superior efficiency and environment friendliness(1-3). MCE materials must exhibit a large temperature variation in response to an adiabatic magnetic-field variation and a large isothermal entropic effect is also expected. In this respect, MnAs shows the colossal MCE, but the effect appears under high pressures(4). In this work, we report on the properties of Mn1-xFexAs that exhibit the colossal effect at ambient pressure. The MCE peak varies from 285K to 310K depending on the Fe concentration. Although a large thermal hysteresis is observed, the colossal effect at ambient pressure brings layered magnetic regenerators with huge refrigerating power closer to practical applications around room temperature.