Magnetocaloric Effect and Refrigerant Capacity of Non-Stoichiometric Single Crystalline

Non-stoichiometric Nd 0.5 Sr 0.5 MnO 3 (NSMO) single crystalline has been grown by the floating zone method. Their magnetic properties, magnetocaloric effect (MCE) and refrigerant capacity ( RC ) at near both first- and second-order phase transitions were investigated. The NSMO system goes through an antiferomagnetic charge-ordered transition at T CO ~ 152 K followed by a ferromagnetic to paramagnetic transition at T C ~ 272 K. The transition region spread over a broader temperature range at the T C but it had a narrower temperature range at the T CO . The maximum magnetic entropy change Δ S max gives about 1.65 J · kg -1 · K -1 at the first order magnetic transition and -1.13 J · kg -1 · K -1 at the second order magnetic transition, respectively. RC is obtained and it shows much higher value about 34.85 J/kg at T C than the RC 19.06 J/kg at T CO . The slight non-stoichiometric NSMO single crystalline system raises the Curie temperature around 30 K towards room temperature without degradation of the RC and temperature span corresponding to the full width at half maximum of Δ S max (Δ T FWHM ) compared to pure single crystalline NSMO system.