Promising magnetocaloric performance of nanostructured GdFeSi intermetallic ribbons for efficient natural gas liquefaction purposes

Abstract

Some members of the RFeSi (R = Pr, Tb, Dy, Gd) family of intermetallic compounds, with tetragonal CeFeSi-type crystalline structure, exhibit low-temperature ferromagnetic behaviour. These alloys are of particular interest for two main reasons: (i) the Fe atoms appear to carry no magnetic moment, with the rare-earth elements being solely responsible for the spontaneous magnetization; and (ii) they display a noticeable magnetocaloric effect in a temperature range (below 150 K) making them promising candidates for technological applications such as natural gas liquefaction. We have successfully fabricated single-phase GdFeSi ribbons in a one-step melt-spinning process, avoiding conventional thermal treatments that includes long-time (several weeks) high-temperature annealing (above 1000 ^oC), thereby considerably reducing production costs. In this work we present a detailed characterization of the crystal structure together with the investigation of the magnetic and magnetocaloric properties.