Magnetic and Magnetocaloric Study of Polycrystalline (1−x)La0.65Ca0.35MnO3/xFe2O3 Composites

Magnetic and magnetocaloric properties of polycrystalline (1 − x)La0.65Ca0.35MnO3/xFe2O3(0 ≤ x ≤ 0.09) composites were investigated. Our composites were elaborated using the solidstate reaction at high temperature. Polycrystalline La0.65Ca0.35MnO3 (LCMO) was synthesized using the solidstate reaction at high temperature while for Fe2O3 we used a commercial product. Xray diffraction patterns show that the parent compound La0.65Ca0.35MnO3 is a single phase without any detectable impurity and crystallizes in the orthorhombic structure with Pbnm space group. Magnetocaloric effect of our composite materials in the vicinity of the magnetic transition temperatures was investigated. The maximum of the magnetic entropy change ΔSMmax\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$\left | {\Delta S}_{M}^{\max }\right |$\end{document} is found to be 6.25, 6.37, 6.18 and 5.87 J kg−1 K−1 for x = 0, 0.03, 0.06, and 0.09 under a magnetic field change of 5 T respectively.