Magnetic and magnetocaloric properties of layered van der Waals CrCl3

We have investigated the magnetic and magnetocaloric properties of van der Waals (vdW) layered CrCl3 from magnetization and heat capacity measurements. CrCl3 exhibits complicated magnetic properties due to the strong competition between the ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic interactions: a ferromagnetic ordering around 17 K followed by an antiferromagnetic ordering at 14.3 K. A large magnetic entropy change (− Δ S M) of 19 J kg−1 K−1, an adiabatic temperature change ( Δ T a d) of 6.2 K, and a relative cooling power of 600 J kg−1 are observed for a field change of 7 T near the transition temperature, and the mechanical efficiency (ηm) at 18 K and 0–3 T is 1.17. These values of magnetocaloric parameters are significantly larger than those for CrI3 and other layered vdW systems. The scaling analysis shows that all the rescaled Δ S M(T, H) data collapse into a single curve, which indicates the second order nature of magnetic phase transition. The above results suggest that environmentally friendly CrCl3 can be a phenomenal alternative to very expensive rare-earth material for the magnetic refrigeration for liquefaction of hydrogen.