Abstract:
Magnetic, magnetocaloric, and magnetoresistance studies have been carried out on polycrystalline samples of Laves phase compounds Ho(Ni1-xFex)(2) [x=0, 0.05, and 0.1]. The magnetocaloric effect in HoNi2 is found to be maximum near the ordering temperature with values of 7 J mol(-1) K-1 and 10.1 K for the isothermal magnetic entropy change and the adiabatic temperature change, respectively, for a field of 50 kOe. With Fe substitution, the temperature variation of magnetocaloric effect shows an additional peak at low temperatures, which is much more pronounced than the peak at the ordering temperature. The origin of the low temperature peak is attributed to the field-induced metamagnetic transition. The magnetoresistance data also seem to support the occurrence of the metamagnetic transition.
