Excellent magnetocaloric effect of a Gd55Al20Co25 bulk metallic glass

In this work, we report a Gd55Al20Co25 bulk metallic glass (BMG) with an excellent magnetocaloric response against the magnetic field variation. The as-cast Gd55Al20Co25 rod with typical amorphous characteristics was fabricated by a traditional suction casting method. The glass-forming ability (GFA) and the magnetic properties of the BMG were studied. The BMG exhibits a rather high refrigeration capacity (RC), which is resulted by a high peak value of magnetic entropy change (-Delta S-m(peak)=9 J kg(-1) K-1) and the wide temperature range at the half maximum of -Delta S-m(peak) (Delta T=89 K) of the BMG under a field of 5 T. The mechanism for the excellent magnetocaloric effect (MCE) of the BMG was investigated. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.