Observation of large magnetocaloric effect near room temperature in Mn0.875Fe0.125CoGe alloy.

Magnetic and magnetocaloric properties of a new class of shape memory alloy of nominal composition Mn0.875Fe0.125CoGe have been investigated. We observe a clear virgin line effect in the isothermal magnetization data around the martensitic transition region which indicates a field induced first order transition. The sample exhibits reasonably large magnetocaloric effect (a peak value of 8.9 J kg−1 K−1 for the magnetic field changing from 0 to 42kOe) around the magnetostructural transition near room temperature (∼ 272 K). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]