Anisotropic Metamagnetic Spin Reorientation and Rotational Magnetocaloric Effect of Single Crystal NdAlGe

Magnetic anisotropy strongly influences the performance of the magnetocaloric effect. We investigated the magnetocaloric properties of the NdAlGe single crystal with I4(1)md 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.