Magnetization reversal behavior and magnetocaloric effect in SmCr0.85Mn0.

15O3
chromites
Surendra Kumar, Indrani Coondoo, M. Vasundhara, Ajit K. Patra, Andrei L. Kholkin, and Neeraj Panwar

Citation: J. Appl. Phys. 121, 043907 (2017); doi: 10.1063/1.4974737

View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4974737
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Published by the American Institute of Physics
 JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS 121, 043907 (2017)

Magnetization reversal behavior and magnetocaloric effect in

SmCr0.85Mn0.15O3 chromites
Surendra Kumar,1 Indrani Coondoo,2 M. Vasundhara,3 Ajit K. Patra,1 Andrei L. Kholkin,2,4
and Neeraj Panwar1,a)
1
Department of Physics, Central University of Rajasthan, Bandarsindri, Ajmer 305817, Rajasthan, India
2
Department of Physics & CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials, University of Aveiro, 39810-193 Aveiro,
Portugal
3
Materials Science and Technology Division, CSIR-National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science
and Technology, Industrial Estate, Trivandrum 695 019, India
4
School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Ural Federal University, 620000 Ekaterinburg, Russia
(Received 5 December 2016; accepted 10 January 2017; published online 24 January 2017)
We have synthesized SmCr0.85Mn0.15O3 (SCMO) chromites through the ceramic route. The
compound crystallized into a distorted orthorhombic structure with the Pnma space group, which
was confirmed from the Rietveld refinement of x-ray powder diffraction patterns. Neel temperature,
noticed at 168 K from the temperature variation of magnetisation, smaller than that reported for
SmCrO3, indicated the influence of Mn3þ substitution on decreasing the antiferromagnetic order-
ing. A phenomenon of magnetization reversal was observed in the SCMO compound. At low mag-
netic fields, i.e., 500 Oe, a single compensation temperature (defined as the temperature where
magnetization became zero) around 106 K was observed in the field cooled magnetization curve.
However, with the application of higher magnetic fields, i.e., under an applied field of 1000 Oe, a
second compensation temperature was noticed around 8 K. With a further increase in the magnetic
field, the magnetization remained positive in both field cooled and zero field cooled protocols. A
normal magnetocaloric effect was observed through an indirect method of field dependence of
magnetisation measured in the temperature range of 2–152 K. The magnetic entropy change (DS)
of 11.36 J kg1 K1 along with the relative cooling power (RCP) of 175.89 J kg1 was obtained
in the temperature range of 10–20 K for an applied field of 90 kOe, and their values at 50 kOe
applied field were, respectively, almost twenty and forty times larger in magnitude in comparison
to those for the SmCrO3 compound. The relatively large values of DS and RCP make the studied
compound a potential candidate for magnetic refrigeration applications at low temperatures.
Published by AIP Publishing. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4974737]

I. INTRODUCTION reported in chromites. The MCE is the base of magnetic

refrigeration, which is a more viable technique utilizing the
Rare-earth (Re) orthochromites are very exciting materi-
materials in the solid form, thus eliminating the usage of haz-
als because they exhibit temperature induced magnetization
ardous gases. Moreover, it is cheaper, safer, more efficient,
reversal (TMR), exchange bias (EB), and spin reorientation
and environmental friendly. The choice of the material
phenomena.1–4 They possess antiferromagnetic (AFM) Neel
depends on how large are the values of the parameters like
temperature in the range of 112–280 K.5 Occurrence of such
magnetic entropy change (DS) and relative cooling power
effects makes them suitable applicants for thermomagnetic
(RCP).11 In general, the values of DS and RCP are the high-
switches, spintronics, thermally assisted random access, and
est near the magnetic phase transitions. In chromites, both
resistive memory devices.6–9 They exhibit three types of
DS and RCP show higher values in the temperature range of
magnetic interactions viz. Cr3þ–Cr3þ, Cr3þ–Re3þ, and
5–50 K where the ordering of Re ions takes place. Thus, it is
Re3þ–Re3þ, consisting of the isotropic, symmetric, and anti-
envisioned that chromites could be a possible replacement
symmetric anisotropic exchange interactions. The interaction
for low temperature cooling technology, which is currently
among the Cr ions determines the magnetic properties above
dominated by the expensive and non-renewable liquid
100 K, yielding magnetic ordering of the Cr ions at Neel
helium refrigeration.12 Yin et al.13 have reported DS values
temperature TN. The effects of the Cr–Re interactions
7.2 (at 20 K), 6.83 (at 20 K), and 13.08 J/kg K (at 5 K) for the
become increasingly important below 100 K, and the Re–Re
HoCrO3, HoCr0.7Fe0.3O3, and DyCr0.7Fe0.3O3 samples,
interaction is dominant at the temperatures in the liquid
respectively, under an applied field of 70 kOe. Yoshi14
helium range, which orders the Re system at spin reorienta-
demonstrated DS and RCP values equal to 4.6 J/kg K and
tion temperatures, TSR.10 Recently, another interesting phe-
86 J/kg for the TmCrO3 system in the temperature range of
nomenon called the magnetocaloric effect (MCE) has been
10–20 K at 50 kOe applied magnetic field. Oliveria et al.15
observed DS ¼ 0.36 J/kg K and RCP ¼ 7.1 J/kg at the Neel
a)
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Electronic addresses: temperature for applied fields up to 50 kOe. Yin et al.16
neerajpanwar@curaj.ac.in and neeraj.panwar@gmail.com noticed the giant value of DS, i.e., 31.6 J/kg K at 3 K under

0021-8979/2017/121(4)/043907/7/$30.00 121, 043907-1 Published by AIP Publishing.

043907-2 Kumar et al. J. Appl. Phys. 121, 043907 (2017)

an applied field of 44 kOe in GdCrO3 single crystals. The large

value of DS  11.3 J/kg K at 45 kOe in DyFe0.5Cr0.5O3 was
assumed to be enhanced by magnetoelectric coupling due to
the magnetic field and temperature induced magnetic transi-
tion.17 Recently, Gupta and Poddar18 investigated the SmCrO3
system and identified the inverse MCE at the spin reorientation
temperature and normal MCE close to it with DS values of
0.24 and 0.13 J/kg K, respectively, under an applied field of
50 kOe. As far as SmCrO3 is concerned, the presence of nega-
tive magnetization in this compound is quite controversial. For
example, Dash and Ravi19 have recently reported the appear-
ance of negative magnetization behaviour in the Mn modified
SmCrO3 compound, which was otherwise absent in the
undoped sample. On the other hand, Gupta et al.20 observed
negative magnetization in the pristine SmCrO3 compound.
Further, Mn3þ is an ion with interesting properties; it is Jahn-
Teller active, and therefore, its introduction in the lattice may
be expected to create hyperfine splitting of t2g and eg orbitals.21
Moreover, there could be either ferromagnetic (FM) or antifer-
romagnetic super-exchange interactions between Mn3þ ions
via intermediate O2, which would affect the canted antiferro-
magnetism and the ensuing intriguing magnetic activities
observed in orthochromites. For example, Wu et al.22 could
observe the exchange bias effect in SmCr0.9Mn0.1O3. In this
paper, we investigate the magnetic and magnetocaloric proper-
ties of the SmCr0.85Mn0.15O3 (SCMO) compound. To the best
of our knowledge, the magnetocaloric effect was not studied
so far in SmCrMnO3 orthochromites, and it is reported for the
first time in this paper.

II. EXPERIMENTAL DETAILS

Polycrystalline SmCr0.85Mn0.15O3 samples were pre-
pared through the solid state reaction method by taking high
purity Sm2O3, MnO2, and Cr2O3 as starting materials. The
stoichiometric amounts of high purity Sm2O3, MnO2, and
Cr2O3 materials were mixed in an agate mortar for several
hours until the mixture became homogenous. It was then cal-
cined at 600  C for 24 h followed by crushing and recalcina-
tion at 900  C for 12 h. After the second calcination, the
powder was pulverized and pelletized in the form of uniform
and compact pellets, which were sintered at 1350  C for 24 h
in air. The crystal structure and phase purity of the powdered
compound were analysed using an x-ray diffractometer
(PANalytical-Empyrean) using Cu Ka radiation with a wave-
length of 1.5404 Å and the scanning step of 0.01 from
20  h  80 . The Rietveld refinement of the diffraction pat-
terns was carried out using Fullprof software. Magnetic
measurements of the samples were made as a function of
temperature and applied field using a vibrating sample mag-
netometer attached to a physical property measurement sys-
tem (PPMS) (Quantum Design Inc., USA).
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
FIG. 1. (a) X-ray diffraction pattern along with Rietveld refinement for the
SmCr0.85Mn0.15O3 compound. (b) Linear fit using the Williamson–Hall rela-
tion given by Eq. (1).
be fitted well with a distorted orthorhombic crystal structure
(Pnma space group) without any characteristic reflection
peaks from any impurity phase. All the peaks are sharp, prop-
erly indexed, and well in agreement with those of SmCrO3
XRD data (JCPDS file No. 00-039-0262).20 This certifies the
incorporation of Mnþ3 ions at Crþ3-sites. The refined lattice
parameters are a ¼ 5.5245 Å, b ¼ 5.3684 Å, and c ¼ 7.6322
Å with the reliability factors RF ¼ 5.65%, RBragg ¼ 2.25%,
and v2 ¼ 1.99%. It is noticed that the lattice volume of the
SCMO compound is larger than that of SmCrO3 in accor-
dance with the literature.19,20,22 This is attributed to the
larger size of Mnþ3 ions (0.645 Å) when compared with
Crþ3 ions (0.615 Å).23 Further, the Williamson-Hall rela-
tion24 was employed to calculate the crystallite size

A. Structural analysis kk
btotal ¼ þ 4g tan h; (1)
dXRD cos h
Fig. 1(a) demonstrates room temperature x-ray diffrac-
tion patterns of the powder sample of SmCr0.85Mn0.15O3 where btotal is the full width at half-maximum (FWHM) of
along with Rietveld structural refinement. The patterns could the XRD peaks. It includes both instrumental and sample
043907-3 Kumar et al.
dependent broadening effects. Here, k is the Debye–Scherrer
constant (0.94 for spherical crystallites), k is the incident
x-ray wavelength, h is the diffraction angle, and g is the
microstrain parameter. The estimated values of the average
crystallite size dXRD and the microstrain parameter g, from
the plot between btotal cos h=kk and 4 sin h=kk, along with
the coefficient of determination (R2) are given in Fig. 1(b).
B. Magnetization reversal and Spin reorientation
Figs. 2(a)–2(d) depict the magnetization versus tempera-
ture curves of the SmCr0.85Mn0.15O3 compound, measured
under H ¼ 500, 1000, 2500, and 5000 Oe in the field-cooled
(FC) and zero-field-cooled (ZFC) modes. An antiferromag-
netic transition can be detected at TN  168 K, which was
calculated from the minimum of the differentiation of mag-
netization versus temperature plot. It is interesting to point
out here that TN for pristine SmCrO3 is 196 K;19,20,22 how-
ever, Mn3þ substitution induces a decrease in it. This may be
understood in terms of dilution of the Cr3þ-Cr3þ interaction
due to Cr3þ-Mn3þ and Mn3þ-Mn3þ exchange interactions.
Further, below TN, interesting features are observed under
different protocols of applied magnetic field. For instance,
both ZFC and FC magnetization curves recorded at 500 Oe
field demonstrate a clear bifurcation at low temperatures.
FIG. 2. (a)–(d) Magnetization curves at different applied fields (500–5000 Oe) in FC and ZFC modes (the black line in insets shows fitting with Eq. (2)).
J. Appl. Phys. 121, 043907 (2017)
The MFC value increases with decreasing temperature, reach-
ing a maximum value of Mmax  0.124 emu/g at TP  148 K.
For temperatures T < TP, magnetization decreases monoto-
nously and crosses zero magnetization at compensation tem-
perature Tcomp1  106 K. Afterwards, magnetization attains a
minimum negative value of Mmin ¼ 1.5 emu/g near 17 K.
Below this temperature, which is known as the spin reorien-
tation temperature (TSR), magnetization starts increasing.
The spin reorientation transition may be thought of arising
from the interactions between different ions viz., Sm3þ -
Sm3þ and Sm3þ - Mn3þ, which change the easy magnetiza-
tion direction and the corresponding spin structure from C4
to collinear C2 at TSR. On the other hand, MZFC remains posi-
tive below Tcomp1. As the applied magnetic field is further
increased to 1000 Oe, the magnetization MFC below TSR
again crosses zero at temperature Tcomp2  8 K and becomes
positive. Thus, the studied compound exhibits two compen-
sation temperatures in the FC protocol under an applied field
of 1000 Oe. Wu et al.22 have observed a similar trend in
SmCr0.9Mn0.1O3 with an applied field of 2000 Oe. The
magnetization becomes positive in the entire temperature
range of measurement under an applied field of 2500 Oe in
both ZFC and FC modes, suggesting that the net internal
magnetic moment of the sample gets aligned in the field
direction. Upon a further increase in the applied field, i.e.,
043907-4 Kumar et al.
5000 Oe, the positive value of the magnetization increases
uninterruptedly, yet the magnetization is lower than that of
zero field cooled one. Now, we try to understand the magnetic
behaviour especially in the field cooled mode under low and
high applied magnetic field values. In the temperature range
TN < T < Tcomp1 under a low applied magnetic field of
500 Oe, the ferromagnetic (FM) component of Cr3þ (MCr),
which arises from the canted antiferromagnetic state of Cr3þ
ions, and the paramagnetic (PM) component of Mn3þ(MMn)
and Sm3þ(MSm) are coupled antiferromagnetically.3,14,25
While MCr points along the applied field, both Mn and Sm
moments are aligned in the direction of the internal field (we
would later notice that applied and the internal fields are oppo-
site to each other). Here, MCr is dominant over MMn or MSm,
resulting in net magnetization in the applied field direction.
However, as the temperature lowers below Tcomp1, the PM
components of MMn and MSm increase, while MCr remains the
same. As a result of this, net magnetization is opposite to the
applied magnetic field, and one notices negative magnetiza-
tion in the field cooled mode for the SCMO sample [scheme
in Fig. 3(a)]. With the application of high magnetic fields, i.e.,
2500 Oe, the rotation of the moments of Mn and Sm ions
along the field takes place since the applied field dominates
the internal field [scheme in Fig. 3(b)], and hence, positive
magnetization occurs in the entire range of measured tempera-
ture.25 The applied field strength that causes a positive magne-
tization value in the field cooled mode could be somewhere
between 1000 and 2500 Oe for the present compound.
In order to further understand the magnetization rever-
sal, the FC magnetization curves, between TSR < T < TP, was
fitted using the following equation:1
Cð H þ HI Þ
M ¼ MCr þ : (2)
Th
Here, M, MCr, C, H, HI, and h stand for the total magnetiza-
tion, magnetization due to the weak FM component of canted
Cr3þ ions, a Curie constant, an applied field, an internal field
from Cr3þions, and a Weiss temperature, respectively. Insets
of Figs. 2(a) and 2(b) show the fitting, and the evaluated
TABLE I. Fitting parameters for M-T curves recorded in the FC mode.
External field (Oe) MCr (emu/g) HI (Oe)
500 0.823 703
1000 0.865 1104
J. Appl. Phys. 121, 043907 (2017)
FIG. 3. Schematic diagrams of the
Cr3þ moments (MCr) and the Mn3þ and
Sm3þ moments (MMn and MSm) under
different applied fields.
parameters are given in Table I under an applied field of 500
and 1000 Oe. From the table, one can notice that the internal
magnetic field HI (due to Cr3þ ions) is in the opposite direc-
tion to the applied one, and its value also depends upon the
applied field as well. The values of HI are well in agreement
with the earlier report.25 The observed increase in the MCr and
HI values (Table II) can be understood in terms of increase in
AFM ordering with applied field.3 Furthermore, a negative
value of h validates the AFM interaction between the canted
Cr3þ and Mn3þ/Sm3þ ions in the present system under low
applied magnetic field values. It is worthwhile to make it clear
that the aforementioned AFM interaction is different from that
arising between Cr3þ ions, which is also apparent from Fig. 3,
as both are normal to each other.
C. M-H loop
Fig. 4 depicts the isothermal magnetization, M(H), loops
acquired at several temperatures between 3 and 120 K. The
loops exhibit a clear hysteresis behaviour but without any sat-
uration tendency even at 90 kOe applied magnetic field. The
plots are symmetric with the field and magnetisation axes, and
thus, there is no indication of the exchange bias (EB) effect in
this compound. Generally, the EB effect is observed in sam-
ples under field cooled conditions like in the SmCr0.9Mn0.1O3
compound reported by Wu et al.22 Therefore, further measure-
ments in the field cooled mode can only confirm the presence
(or absence) of the EB effect in the present compound.
Further, such a type of loops are attributed to the coexistence
of high field antiferromagnetic (AFM) and low field weak FM
states, and the total M(H) behavior can be expressed as
M(H) ¼ vAFH þ Ms, where vAFH is the antiferromagnetic con-
tribution and Ms is the saturation magnetization of the weak
ferromagnetism.26 Therefore, the low field saturated hysteresis
loop due to FM and the corresponding Ms value can be
obtained by subtracting the antiferromagnetic contribution
TABLE II. Magnetic entropy change and relative cooling power at various
applied magnetic fields.
HMax (kOe) DSMax (J kg1 K1) RCP(J kg1)
10 0.36095 3.42
30 2.294 32.55
h (K)
50 5.019 69.99
34 70 8.051 119.88
86 90 11.36 175.89
043907-5 Kumar et al.
FIG. 4. Magnetization versus magnetic field loops acquired at different tem-
peratures between 3 and 120 K. The inset shows the M-H curve at 20 K after
subtracting the antiferromagnetic contribution from the total magnetization.
from the total magnetization (inset of Fig. 4). The high coer-
civity, Hc ¼ 5.651 kOe, and the saturation magnetization,
Ms ¼ 1.83 emu/g, at T ¼ 20 K are indicative of the FM contri-
bution (inset of Fig. 4).
From the magnetic hysteresis loop of Fig. 4, it can be
noticed that coercivity is maximum at 20 K temperature,
which is close to TSR. The coercive field (HC), without sub-
tracting the high field linear AFM contribution, was esti-
mated at different temperatures below the Neel temperature
and fitted using the following Bloch’s equation:
"  a #
T between the two isotherms, n is the number of points mea-
HC ¼ HC0 1  ; (3)
TB
  field at T ¼ 0 K, TB is the Bloch’s
where HC0 is the coercive
temperature, and a ¼ 32 is the Bloch’s exponent for bulk
materials.27 Temperature variation of Hc along with the fitted
data to Eq. (3) is shown in Fig. 5, where a good agreement
can be perceived between the theoretical and experimental
data. The estimated values of HC0 and TB were 6.01 kOe and
FIG. 5. Magnetic coercivity as a function of temperature (the solid line shows
the fitting with Eq. (3)).
J. Appl. Phys. 121, 043907 (2017)
145 K, respectively. The obtained TB is close to the TP peak
in the field cooled magnetization curve.
D. Magnetocaloric measurements
In order to further examine the performance of the
SCMO material for magnetic refrigeration, M(H) curves were
acquired by varying the magnetic field from 0 to 90 kOe. The
data were taken between 2 and 152 K temperature range with
an interval of DT ¼ 5 K and are shown in Fig. 6(a). The mag-
netocaloric effect is usually considered as a property related to
magnetic refrigeration. The change in magnetic entropy due
to the MCE is given by Maxwell’s relation28
   
@SðT; H Þ @MðT; H Þ
¼ ;
@H T @T H
which after integration yields
ð HF  
@MðT; H Þ
DSðT ÞDH ¼ dH:
HI @T H
Numerical integration of the above equation by trapezoi-
dal rule results29
!
dH Xn1
DSðTav ÞDH ¼ dM1 þ 2 dMi þ dMn ;
2dT i¼2
where average temperature Tav( ¼ (Tj þ Tjþ1)/2) from the
two magnetization isotherms measured at Tj and Tjþ1 in a
magnetic field changing by DH ¼ HF–HI with a constant step
dH. While dT ¼ Tjþ1–Tj is the temperature difference
sured for each of the two isotherms with the magnetic field
changing from H1 ¼ HI to Hn ¼ HF at dH ¼ DH=ðn  1Þ.
Further, dMi ¼ ½MðTjþ1 Þi  MðTj Þi  is the difference in the
magnetization at Tjþ1 and Tj for each magnetic-field step
from 1 to n. The values of DS are plotted against T for sev-
eral H values in Fig. 6(b). It is clear that DS is positive in
the whole temperature measurement range with a maximum
value observed near to TSR. It is worthwhile mentioning here
that the sign of DS provides the information about the mag-
netic transition.30 For a FM transition, a positive value is
obtained, whereas an AFM ordering displays a negative
value due to an orientation disorder of the magnetic sublatti-
ces. In the present system, the peak is suggested due to FM
ordering at TSR. Further, the DS value is 11.36 J kg1
K1 at 90 kOe. On comparing the DS value of the present
study with that for the undoped SmCrO3 compound reported
by Gupta and Podder,18 we observed that our sample yielded
almost twenty times higher values between 0 and 50 K
temperature range and under an applied field of 50 kOe
(Table II). Moreover, an inverse MCE was observed in
SmCrO3 at TSR, whereas a normal MCE was found for the
present SCMO compound. The difference could be attributed
to the fact that they observed a positive magnetization value
in field cooled for the SmCrO3 sample, whereas it was nega-
tive for the SCMO compound at 500 Oe applied field. The
DS for the SCMO sample (listed in Table II) is comparable
043907-6 Kumar et al.
FIG. 6. (a) M-H curve in the first quadrant for the SCMO sample between 2 and 152 K at a temperature interval of 5 K. (b) Magnetic entropy change versus
temperature at different applied magnetic fields.
to that of HoCrO3,13 HoCr0.7Cr0.3O3,13 and TmCrO314 chro-
mites and manganites31 in the temperature range of 10–20 K.
Like for the TmCrO3 sample,14 it is apparent that rotation of
Sm3þ ions with applied field brings a positive value corre-
sponding to a FM state in the spin reorientation region in the
case of SCMO. It is also envisaged that the alignment of
Mn3þ ions along the applied field direction at higher field val-
ues contributes to the enhancement of DS values. We further
calculated the relative cooling power (RCP) or refrigerant
capacity by integrating the magnetic entropy change between
temperatures T1 ¼ 5 K and T2 ¼ 25 K at different magnetic
field values. The maximum value of RCP obtained in the stud-
ied compound is 175.89 J kg1 under an applied field of
90 kOe. The RCP values of the present compound are compa-
rable to those of TmCrO3 and about forty times higher than
those of the SmCrO3 compound.18
The prediction about the order parameter of the mag-
netic transition could be made with the help of Arrott plots32
between H/M and M2. The first order phase transition yields
FIG. 7. Arrott plot at different temperatures for the SMCO sample. The inset
shows the zoomed view in the spin reorientation region.
J. Appl. Phys. 121, 043907 (2017)
a negative slope, whereas it is positive for the second order
transition.18 The slope of the Arrott plot was found to be pos-
itive, confirming the second order spin reorientation phase
transition in SCMO (Fig. 7). As shown in the inset of Fig. 7,
a change in the slope was also observed near TSR, which
indicates the FM ordering. For the materials undergoing a
second-order transition, Smax was predicted to develop as
H2/3, but later it was found that besides a term in H2/3,  Smax
contains an additional term, which is independent of H.33
This was explained on the basis of Landau’s theory of sec-
ond order phase transitions. The obtained expression was33
 2=3
H a2
DSmax ¼ a  DT: (4)
4b 18b
DT is the width of the distribution of transition temperatures
around the mean point, and a and b are positive quantities
independent of T or H that enters the standard Landau expan-
sion. Fig. 8 shows that Smax / H2/3 signalling that an
FIG. 8. Magnetic entropy change (maximum) versus two thirds field power
variation.
043907-7 Kumar et al.
approach based on the mean field theory is sufficient to
explain the magnetic behaviour for high fields for the present
SCMO sample.
Finally, we could observe high values of DS in the
SMCO sample near the spin reorientation temperature along
with second order phase transition. Such materials may be
better than those showing first order phase transition accom-
panied by the thermal hysteresis for the magnetic refrigera-
tion applications.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
Structural, magnetic, and magnetocaloric properties of
SmCr0.85Mn0.15O3 chromites have been investigated. The
compound exhibited an orthorhombic structure with the Pnma
space group. While the lattice volume has been found to be
larger when compared to that of SmCrO3, the Neel- and the
spin reorientation transitions occurred at lower temperatures.
Magnetization reversal observed at low applied magnetic
fields in the field cooled mode got suppressed at higher field,
which caused the magnetization to become positive in the
entire temperature range. A normal magnetocaloric effect near
to the spin orientation region is observed in the present
compound, which is opposite to the inverse magnetocaloric
effect reported for the undoped SmCrO3. Large values of
DS (11.36 J kg1 K1) and RCP (175.89 J kg1) are
observed in the temperature range of 10–20 K under an
applied field of 90 kOe. Moreover, the values of DS and
RCP for the present compound at 50 kOe field are almost
twenty and forty times higher in magnitude, respectively,
than those reported for SmCrO3. These enhanced values
make SmCr0.85Mn0.15O3 chromite a potential candidate to
replace the existing materials for low temperature magnetic
refrigeration.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors (S.K. and N.P.) would like to thank the
University Grant Commission, New Delhi, for providing the
Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship (RGNF) and UGC Start-up-
grant, whereas I.C. acknowledges the financial support from
FCT, Portugal, through SFRH/BPD/81032/2011. The authors
would also like to thank the Council of Scientific and Industrial
Research networking projects SURE-CSC0132 and
INTELCOAT-CSC0114 for partially supporting this work.
A.L.K. acknowledges the CICECO-Aveiro Institute of
Materials (Ref. FCT UID/CTM/50011/2013) financed by
J. Appl. Phys. 121, 043907 (2017)
national funds through the FCT/MEC and, when applicable, co-
financed by FEDER under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement.
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