A comparative study of the magnetic and transport properties of Dy-In based intermetallic compounds.

• Systematic variation of the magnetic properties of Dy-In intermetallic compounds. • Observation of large magnetocaloric effect in compositions having large Dy concentration. • Thermal hysteresis and first order magnetic phase transition. • Signature of metamagnetism in the transport and magneto-caloric data. A comparative study of the magnetic and transport properties of three Dy-In intermetallic compounds, namely DyIn 3 , Dy 5 In 3 and Dy 3 In, is reported. DyIn 3 has cubic crystal structure; on the other hand, Dy 5 In 3 and Dy 3 In crystallize in tetragonal structure, albeit with different space groups. DyIn 3 orders antiferromagnetically below T N = 23 K, while Dy 5 In 3 and Dy 3 In show ferromagnetic-like ground state with much higher ordering temperatures (119 and 125 K respectively). The ferromagnetic compounds show significant magneto-caloric effect around their respective Curie temperatures. On the other hand, the magneto-caloric effect in DyIn 3 is low but associated with the change in sign around T N . All the samples show small magneto-resistance, and it is found to be positive in case of DyIn 3 at 5 K. The signature of metamagnetic transition in DyIn 3 is visible in the magneto-caloric and magneto-resistance data. Efforts have been made to account the observed magnetic phenomena based on Dy concentration and Dy-Dy bond distance in these three compositions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]