Spin reorientation, normal and inverse magnetocaloric effects in heavy rare-earth iron garnets

Abstract Experiments for heavy rare-earth iron garnets Ho3Fe5O12 and Er3Fe5O12 show a compensation effect characterized by a near zero magnetization at 134 K and 80 K, respectively. The magnetic entropy change calculated according to the Maxwell's relation is shown to be positive and negative, indicating both normal and inverse magnetocaloric effects exist in the sample. The critical temperature (134 K for Ho3Fe5O12, 80 K for Er3Fe5O12) of the two types of magnetocaloric effect occurs at almost the same temperature as the compensation point. However, the compensation effect is attributed to the multiple exchange interactions among the octahedral sites Fe3+, the tetrahedral sites Fe3+ and the dodecahedral sites R3+, while the reversal of the magnetocaloric effect is originated from the spin reorientation. The maximum magnetic entropy change of the normal magnetocaloric effect is 4.72 J kg−1 K−1 for Ho3Fe5O12 at 34 K and 4.94 J kg−1 K−1 for Er3Fe5O12 at 24 K, respectively. Moreover, all the positive slopes of basic Arrott plots suggest only the second-order phase transition existing in Ho3Fe5O12 and Er3Fe5O12.