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Magnetoelastic transitions (METs) in bulk in nearly equiatomic Fe-Rh alloys produced by arc melting may show poor reproducibility related to insufficient chemical homogeneity and presence of impurity phases in variable concentrations. To better understand the synthesis conditions that reliably yield bulk FeRh materials with reproducible MET characteristics, Fe100-xRhx alloys with x = 50, 50.5 and 51 at. % were prepared by induction melting and thermal annealing under identical conditions. The fabricated samples were cut into several slices, followed by characterization of METs in each of the slices using isothermal and isofield magnetization measurements, differential scanning calorimetry, and direct measurements of the magnetocaloric effect. All of the slices exhibit METs between the AFM and FM states, but the transitions are abrupt with nearly the same change of magnetization, ΔM, when x = 50.5 and 51, whereas for the x = 50 alloy the transition spreads over a wide temperature interval and ΔM may fluctuate by as much as 10 % from one specimen to another. A comparison of the magnetocaloric responses of x = 50 and 51 materials is presented. The clearly different effect of the magnetic field on the transition in both directions leads to significant differences in the reversibility and maximum values of the magnetic field-induced entropy and adiabatic temperature changes, as well as average hysteresis losses. In terms of reproducibility, our results suggest that induction melting is a more appropriate technique to prepare these binary alloys.

The magnetic properties and reversibility of the magnetocaloric effect of Ni 50 Mn 35 In 15 have been studied in the vicinity of the phase transition using magnetization and direct adiabatic temperature change (ΔT ad ) measurements in magnetic fields up to 14 T. The magnetostructural phase transitions (MSTs) between a martensitic phase (MP) with low magnetization (paramagnetic or antiferromagnetic) and a nearly ferromagnetic austenitic phase were detected from thermomagnetic curves, M(T,H), at the applied magnetic fields up to 5 T. The MST temperature was found to be nearly independent of magnetic field for H ad ∼ −11 К for a magnetic field change of ΔH = 14 T was observed in the vicinity of the MST. The irreversibility of ΔT ad was found to be 1 K. A direct ΔT ad of +7 K for ΔH = 14 T was detected at the second order ferromagnetic-paramagnetic phase transition. The obtained results have been discussed in terms of the suppression of antiferromagnetic correlations with the application of a strong magnetic field, and a reversibility of the initial magnetic state of the MP with applied magnetic field when the MST coincides with T C .