Adiabatic decompression of paraquadrupolar materials has significant potential as a cryogenic cooling technology. We focus on TmVO

_{4}

, an archetypal material that undergoes a continuous phase transition to a ferroquadrupole-ordered state at 2.15 K. Above the phase transition, each Tm ion contributes an entropy of

k_{B} ln 2

due to the degeneracy of the crystal electric field groundstate. Owing to the large magnetoelastic coupling, which is a prerequisite for a material to undergo a phase transition via the cooperative Jahn–Teller effect, this level splitting, and hence the entropy, can be readily tuned by externally induced strain. Using a dynamic technique in which the strain is rapidly oscillated, we measure the adiabatic elastocaloric response of single-crystal TmVO

_{4}

, and thus experimentally obtain the entropy landscape as a function of strain and temperature. The measurement confirms the suitability of this class of materials for cryogenic cooling applications and provides insight into the dynamic quadrupole strain susceptibility.

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