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Low-field magnetocaloric effect occurred in itinerant metamagnetic materials is at core for magnetic cooling application. This works reports the magnetocaloric responses obtained at 1.35 T for the silicon-doped iron-based binary alloy La(Fe 0.88 Si 0.12 ) 13 in the bulk and ribbon form. Both samples possess a same symmetry but with different crystallite sizes and lattice parameters. The ribbon sample shows a larger maximum entropy change (nearly 8.5 times larger) and a higher Curie temperature (5 K higher) in comparison with that of the bulk sample. The obtained relative cooling power for the ribbon is also larger and very promising for application (RCP = 153 J/kg versus 25.2 J/kg for the bulk). The origin of the effect observed is assigned to the occurrence of negative magnetovolume effect in the ribbon structure with limit crystallization, caused by rapid cooling process at the preparation, which induced smaller crystallite size and large lattice constant at the overall weaker local crystal field.

The La-excess alloys La1+δ(Fe0.85Si0.15)13 (δ = 0.06 and 0.09) exhibit large magnetocaloric effect which has been attributed to the occurrence of itinerant-electron metamagnetic transition near the Curie temperature TC. The maximum entropy change −ΔSm was shown to be from 4.5 to 11.5 J/kg K for the applied field variation ΔH from 20 to 70 kOe, respectively. The estimated relative cooling power for ΔH = 70 kOe was 418 J/kg. The alloys show a typical NaZn13-type cubic structure, featuring a doping-induced magnetovolume effect with the increase in TC. Under the applied pressure up to 2 GPa, the TC as deduced from resistance measurements decreased linearly, ΔTC = 113 (for δ = 0.06) and 111 K (for δ = 0.09), together with a corresponding decrease of resistivity, Δρ = 6.1 μΩ m at room temperature for both samples. At a low pressure, the effect of spontaneous magnetostriction on TC caused by applying the pressure appeared to have a similar magnitude to that of the negative magnetovolume effect caused by La-exces...