Keunki Cho

Magnetic anisotropy strongly influences the performance of the magnetocaloric effect. We investigated the magnetocaloric properties of the NdAlGe single crystal with I4₁md structure. The temperature-dependent magnetization revealed significant anisotropic properties; stable antiferromagnetic transition at T_N = 6 K for H//a and meta-magnetic spin reorientation at low temperature (T ≤ 5 K) within an intermediate field (H = 2 T) for H//c. During the metamagnetic spin reorientation, the abrupt change of the magnetic entropy leads to a significant magnetocaloric effect with negative magnetic entropy change (∆S_M) by −13.80 J kg⁻¹ K⁻¹ at T_C = 5.5 K for H = 5 T along the H//c axis. In addition, the antiferromagnetic state for H//a shows the inverse magnetocaloric effect(I-MCE) by positive entropy change ∆S_M = 2.64 J kg⁻¹ K⁻¹ at T_N = 6 K for H = 5 T. This giant MCE accompanied by the metamagnetic transition resulted in a significantly large relative cooling power (158 J/kg at H = 5 T) for H//c. The giant MCE and I-MCE can be applied to the rotational magnetocaloric effect (R-MCE) depending on the crystal orientations. NdAlGe exhibits rotational entropy change ∆S_c−a = −12.85 J kg⁻¹ K at T_peak = 7.5 K, H = 5 T. With comparison to conventional MCE materials, NdAlGe is suggested as promising candidate of R-MCE, which is a novel type of magnetic refrigeration system.