Structural and magnetic properties of DyCrO3

Abstract

In this contribution, the structural and magnetic properties of DyCrO3 are studied, along with the magnetocaloric effect in this compound. The susceptibility as a function of temperature, χ(T), indicates that DyCrO3 has a G-type antiferromagnetic behaviour with weak ferromagnetism below Néel temperature, TNCr, at 147.1 ± 0.1 K, attributed to the ordering of Cr moments. The Dy moments orders antiferromagnetically below the spin reorientation temperature TSR = 4.81 ± 0.04 K. The dependence of magnetization on the applied magnetic field, Mμ0H, shows a behaviour that corresponds to the χ(T) data. Arrott plots reflect the various magnetic orderings with a change in the gradient of the curves. For the first time, the magnetocaloric effect of sol-gel synthesized DyCrO3 is studied having an average particle size 215 ± 3 nm as obtained from transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Large magnetocaloric effects (MCE) are observed in the temperature range of 10 to 80 K for DyCrO3. The compound shows a relatively large magnetic entropy change (ΔSM) of 21 J.Kg−1.K−1 and relative cooling power (RCP) of 498 J.Kg−1 at 7 T and 10 K. Assuming the relations |ΔSmT,H|=a(H)n and RCP=CH1+1δ, with critical exponents n = 1 and δ → ∞ were obtained from the linearization, confirming the weak ferromagnetic behaviour.