Magnetostructural transition and magnetocaloric effect in MnCoGe-NiCoGe system

Magnetostructural transition and magnetocaloric effect were investigated for MnCoGe-NiCoGe system. Chemically alloying NiCoGe with the parent compound MnCoGe stabilizes the high-temperature hexagonal structure relative to the low-temperature orthorhombic structure and keeps their Curie temperatures nearly constants, establishing a Curie temperature window in which the magnetic and structural transitions coincide. As a result, magnetostructural transitions occur between ferromagnetic and paramagnetic states with sharp jumps in magnetization around room temperature. Large magnetocaloric effects with tunable phase transition temperatures were observed in the MnCoGe-NiCoGe system.