Magnetic and magnetocaloric properties of DyMn^sub 2^Si^sub 2^ compound with multiple magnetic phase transition

Structural, magnetic and magnetocaloric properties of the ternary intermetallic compound DyMn2Si2 are studied by X-ray diffraction and magnetization measurements. It is found that DyMn2Si2 crystalizes with tetragonal ThCr2S2-type structure and exhibits four successive magnetic transitions at low temperature, around 20 K, 31 K, 38 K and 82 K, named respectively as T1, T2, T3 and T4 transitions. Large values of magnetic field (>35 kOe) favor antiferromagnetic clusters and give rise to exchange bias effect. The different responses of T2 and T3 to field change, induces two non-identical isothermal entropy change (-ΔSM) peaks. The maximum values of -ΔSM occur in temperatures around T3 and reaches 8.2 J/kgK, for a magnetic field change of 50 kOe. Also, the presence of transitions T2 and T3 close to each other induces a table-like magnetocaloric effect (MCE) in a wide temperature range. Thus, the peculiar magnetic properties observed for DyMn2Si2 compound are interesting for low temperature magnetic refrigeration.