Investigation of magnetocaloric effect in Dy doped TbMnO3

•The magnetocaloric effect studies of Dy doped TbMnO3 multiferroics using sp. heat data were made.•Based on these studies, parameters ΔS, ΔT and RCP were also evaluated.•These results suggest that these materials may be exploited for mag. refrigerant applications.

Multiferroic materials with the compositional formula, Tb1−xDyxMnO3 (x=0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4) were prepared by the sol gel technique. After characterizing the samples structurally, a systematic investigation of specific heat has been undertaken, over a temperature range 4–300 K in 0 T and 5 T magnetic fields. All the samples display interesting specific heat behavior exhibiting transitions due to the long range ordering of Mn3+ as well as R3+ magnetic moments. Magnetic field change generates an entropy change of ~1 J/mol K when a magnetic field changes from 0 to 5 T in the vicinity of antiferromagnetic ordering temperature of R3+. The values of adiabatic temperature change is also appreciable to consider these materials as possible magnetic refrigerants at low temperatures.