Abstract

We have fabricated melt-spun ribbons of nominal composition ErMn2 and studied their phase constitution and magnetocaloric (MC) properties by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), magnetization and heat capacity measurements. The major phase formed shows the MgZn2-type hexagonal structure (C14-type); however, both XRD and SEM analyses revealed the formation of impurity phases (i.e., Er6Mn23 and ErMn12). Ribbons exhibit a saturation magnetization of 149 Am(2)kg(-1) at 2 K and a Curie temperature of T-C = 15 K. A field-induced metamagnetic transition at very low critical magnetic fields was observed below 8 K that leads to a change of sign in the magnetic entropy change Delta S-M below this temperature (Delta S-M(peak) = 2.5 Jkg(-1)K(-1) at 2 K and 5 T). For a magnetic field change of 5 T (2 T) applied along the ribbon length, the samples show a large peak value of the magnetic entropy change Delta S-M(Peak) of -20.5 (-10.8) Jkg(-1)K(-1), a full-width at half-maximum delta T-FWHM for the Delta S-M(T) curve of 20 (12) K, and a maximum adiabatic temperature change Delta T-ad(max) of 7.4 (3.6) K. The obtained results are compared with the reported in literature by other authors for bulk alloys.