Magnetocaloric effect and nature of magnetic transition in low dimensional DyCu2

Abstract In this manuscript, we propose a method to prepare small flakes of DyCu 2 . On top of that we also report on the magnetocaloric effect and nature of magnetic transition of a strongly anisotropic DyCu 2 in its low dimension. Magnetization measurements were carried out in the temperature range of 5–100 K and up to the maximum magnetic field strength of 50 kOe. Magnetic entropy change (Δ S M ) is estimated using the well-known Maxwell’s equations and is found to be −4.31 J/kg-K. Indeed, the Δ S M peak broadened marginally compared with its bulk DyCu 2 and such a broadening can be attributed to significant increase in the total grain boundary volume. As these small flakes consists larger ΔS M values at temperatures higher than the Neel temperature (T N ), one can use them as a magnetic refrigerant material in a broad temperature range. We also plotted the M 2 vs. H/M (which are called as the Arrott plots) in order to find the nature of magnetic transition. Arrott plots infer that indeed there exists nonlinearity in M 2 vs. H/M behavior and such nonlinear behavior is ascribed to the random anisotropy or a random field that is present in the system.