Enhanced magnetocaloric properties with a tunable Curie temperature in (1 − x)La CaMnO/xLaCaSrMnO system (0 ≤ x ≤ 1).

Improvement of magnetocaloric properties with tunable Curie temperature near room temperature is revealed to be possible by the mixture of both individual phases La CaMnO (phase 1) and LaCaSrMnO (phase 2). This work demonstrates the outstanding agreement between the experimental results and the continuous curves predicted by numerical calculations in a two phases composite system (1 − x)La CaMnO/xLaCaSrMnO (0 ≤ x ≤ 1). Our samples were synthesized using the sol-gel process and the solid-state reaction for phase 1 and phase 2, respectively. For both samples, a clear ferromagnetic (FM)-paramagnetic (PM) transition at the Curie temperature (T) is observed. Such a T is found to be 274.7 and 308 K for La CaMnO and LaCaSrMnO, respectively. Besides, the magnetic entropy change and the Relative Cooling Power (RCP) values were estimated for the biphasic system (1 − x)La CaMnO/xLaCaSrMnO with 0 ≤ x ≤ 1. We revealed that the optimum magnetocaloric effect at µH = 2 T has been found for the composition with x = 0.65, which displays a table-like ΔS curve with a peak value slightly lowered and strongly expanded around room temperature when compared with those of the parent compounds. Therefore, the obtained results will draw considerable attention in the field of research regarding the development of magnetic refrigeration devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]