Critical behavior and anisotropic magnetocaloric effect of the quasi-one-dimensional hexagonal ferromagnet Pr Cr Ge3

Critical properties and anisotropic magnetocaloric effect of hexagonal ferromagnet PrCrGe3 single crystals were investigated. The critical exponents β=0.352 with a critical temperature TC=90.5K and γ=1.026 with TC=90.6K are obtained by the modified Arrott plot, whereas δ=3.98 is deduced by a critical isotherm analysis. The critical exponents suggest a long-range magnetic coupling with the exchange distance decaying as J(r)∼r−4.6. Furthermore, the magnetic entropy change −ΔSM reaches a maximum value around TC, i.e., −ΔSM∼3.2(1.8)Jkg−1K−1 with in-plane (out-of-plane) field change of 5 T, verifying large magnetic anisotropy. The rescaled −ΔSM(T,H) plots collapse onto a universal curve independent of temperature and field, confirming a second-order magnetic phase transition and reliability of the obtained critical exponents.