Enhanced magnetocaloric effect in Gd3Ga5−<i>x</i>Fe<i>x</i>O12

The working refrigerant material in the majority of magnetic refrigerators has been Gd3Ga5O12 (GGG) which has an upper temperature limit near 15 K. In this paper we report on the field-induced adiabatic magnetic entropy change, ΔSm(H,T), of a series of iron-substituted gadolinium garnets (GGIG) Gd3Ga5−xFexO12 which have the potential to increase the working temperature range or to reduce the field requirements of cryogenic magnetic refrigeration. Depending on Fe concentration, x, the entropy change of these materials at applied fields of 0.9 and 5.0 T is much greater than that of GGG, especially at temperatures above 15 K. At low Fe concentrations, the results are consistent with formation of magnetically ordered clusters of spins at low temperatures. Room temperature electron paramagnetic resonance measurements show that Fe3+ ions mediate exchange interactions which are responsible for clustering at low temperatures.