Large reversible magnetocaloric effect in antiferromagnetic Ho2O3 powders

Abstract Giant magnetocaloric materials are highly promising for technological applications in magnetic refrigeration. Although giant magnetocaloric effects were discovered in first-order magnetic transition materials, it is accompanied by some non-desirable drawbacks, such as important hysteretic phenomena, irreversibility of the effect, or poor mechanical stability, which limits their use in applications. Here, we report the discovery of a giant magnetocaloric effect in commercialized Ho2O3 oxide at low temperature (around 2 K) without hysteresis losses. Ho2O3 is found to exhibit a second-order antiferromagnetic transition with a Néel temperature of 2 K. At an applied magnetic field change of 5 T and below 3.5 K, the maximum value of magnetic entropy change $$(-\Delta {{\rm{S}}}_{M}^{max})$$ ( - Δ S M max ) , the refrigerant capacity (RC) were found to be 31.9 J.K−1.kg−1 and 180 J.K−1, respectively.