Successive magnetic transitions and magnetocaloric effect in DY3AL2 compound

Nowadays, magnetic refrigeration based on magnetocaloric effect (MCE) has attracted much attention. So far, a great number of rare earth (R)-based compounds with first-order phase transition have been found to exhibit large MCE. However, the first-order phase transition often presents narrow magnetic entropy change (ΔS_M) peak and is usually accompanied with remarkable thermal/ magnetic hystereses, which always reduce the effective refrigerant capacity (RC). On the contrary, materials with second-order magnetic transition show a good reversible behavior of MCE. Moreover, some materials with successive second-order magnetic transitions exhibit multiple ΔS_M peaks in a wide temperature region, and thus leading to a large RC. In present work, we report the successive magnetic transitions and MCE in Dy₃Al₂ compound.