Effect of terbium substitution on the magnetocaloric properties of Gd3Ga5O12

The magnetic refrigeration is an environment friendly cooling technology based on magnetocaloric effect. The most crucial ingredient behind a magnetic refrigerator is a magnetic material which possesses large magnetocaloric effect. Certain materials when placed in a magnetic field suddenly get heats up and suddenly cooled down by the application and the removal of magnetic field due to their change in entropy. This is measured either in terms of isothermal entropy change and adiabatic temperature change observed when the applied magnetic field is varied. The refrigerators which operate below 15K have applications in liquefying helium and for the development of space based cooling system for the space crafts. The material of choice in this temperature range is rare earth gallium garnets. Rare earth garnets are complex ceramic oxides having the chemical formula A3B2C3O12 have attracted attention due to their interesting magnetic properties. The magnetism in R3Ga5O12 is due to the exchange interaction between the rare earth spins. In the proposed work we have chosen Gd3Ga5O12 as parent material, substituted Tb systematically in the place of Gd. The structural studies were done by using Rietveld analysis of X-Ray diffraction. There is a systematic variation of volume and lattice parameter upon substitution of Tb. The magnetic characterizations were done by a vibrating sample magnetometer. The experimental magnetic moments of the materials were calculated from the M-T curve by using Curie-Weiss fit and are good agreement with the theoretical values. There is a systematic increase of magnetic moments by Tb substitution. The magnetocaloric effect is calculated by using the integrated Maxwell's relation from the magnetization data. At low magnetic fields the Tb substituted compounds show good MCE values than GGG. Tb substitution enhances the magnetocaloric effect at low magnetic fields and the ΔSM values are higher for x = 1 and 3 at 1T. Hence these materials can be used as refrigerants for future cryogenic applications. (author)