Engineered Gd-Co based multilayer stack to enhanced magneto-caloric effect and relative cooling power

International audience; Magnetic refrigeration based on the magneto-caloric effect is one of the best alternatives to compete with vapor-compression technology. The viability of a magnetic refrigeration system for magnetic cooling can be tested by exploiting the materials in various forms, ranging from bulk to nanostructured materials. In order to achieve a wide refrigerating temperature range in magnetic refrigeration, we study in this paper a 100 nm-thick Gd-Co alloys-based multilayer stack. The stack is made of four individual Gd-Co alloy layers with different values of concentration and Curie temperature (TC). A magnetic entropy change associated with the second-order magnetic phase transition was determined from the magnetic isotherms. Moreover, the relative cooling power (RCP) of the studied Gd-Co-based multilayer is enhanced compared to the one of bulk Gd, and reaches a value of 200 J/kg. Such an enhancement of the RCP is not due to an enhanced maximum variation of entropy, but this is due to a much broader magnetic entropy peak. This study demonstrates the potential of nanostructured Gd-Co multilayer stack for magnetic cooling applications.