Relation between rare-earth magnetism and the magnetocaloric effect in multiferroic hexagonal manganites

The magnetocaloric effect enables magnetic refrigeration and plays an important role for cooling at cryogenic temperatures, which is essential for emergent technologies such as hydrogen liquefaction and quantum computing. Here, we study the magnetocaloric effect in multiferroic hexagonal manganites by conducting direct adiabatic temperature measurements in pulsed magnetic fields exceeding 20 T. Data gained on polycrystalline HoMnO3, ErMnO3, TmMnO3, and YMnO3 demonstrate a direct correlation between the magnetic 4f-moments and the measured adiabatic temperature change. In HoMnO3, i.e., the system with the largest magnetic 4f-moments, significant temperature changes, {\Delta}Tad, of up to 20.1 K are observed, whereas the effect is largely suppressed in YMnO3. Our systematic investigations show the importance of the rare-earth magnetism for the magnetocaloric effect in multiferroic hexagonal manganites at cryogenic temperatures, reaching about 64% of the adiabatic temperature changes reported for gadolinium at room temperature.