Structural, magnetic properties and magnetocaloric effect in Ni-doped antiperovskite compounds GaCMn3−xNix (0≤x≤0.10)

The effects of Ni substitution on the structure, magnetic properties and magnetocaloric effect (MCE) of antipervoskite compounds GaCMn3−xNix (0≤x≤0.10) have been investigated systematically. As the doping level x increases, both the Curie temperature TC and the saturated magnetization MS at 200 K increase, while the antiferromagnetic ground state gradually decreases. The observed behavior could be well interpreted by considering the lattice shrinkage and band filling effects. The magnetic entropy change ΔSM with an applied field change of 48 kOe shows a plateau-like temperature dependent behavior for x=0.05, 0.07 and a caret-like behavior for x=0.10. Our results indicate that the magnetic properties and MCE of GaCMn3 may be easily tunable by chemical doping in Mn site.