Magnetic properties and magnetocaloric effect in Tb3Al2 compound

Magnetic properties of intermetallic Tb3Al2 compound have been investigated systematically by magnetization and heat capacity measurements. Tb3Al2 compound undergoes a ferromagnetic-paramagnetic transition at Curie temperature TC = 190 K. Besides, another transition is observed around 86 K, which probably corresponds to a spin reorientation transition. In addition, a strong domain-wall-freezing effect may occur in low temperature range due to the high magnetocrystalline anisotropy, and thus resulting in the large intrinsic coercivity. Tb3Al2 compound shows large magnetocaloric effect without hysteresis loss around TC, which is comparable to or even higher than those of some magnetocaloric materials in same temperature range. Furthermore, the full width at half-maximum value of adiabatic temperature change ΔTad peak for Tb3Al2 at 50 kOe is 55 K, more than three times of that (17 K) for typical magnetocaloric material La(Fe0.88Si0.12)13.