Specific heat and magnetocaloric effect studies in multiferroic YMnO3

Multiferroic bulk YMnO3 sample was prepared through the solid state reaction method. After characterizing the sample structurally, a systematic investigation of magnetization and specific heat has been undertaken over a temperature range 2–300 K under different magnetic fields. Based on these studies, it has been found that the sample exhibited a paramagnetic to ferrimagnetic phase transition of spin glass type at ~42 K that could be attributed to spin cantering. The magnetic transition peak seen in the magnetic entropy change versus temperature curves became broader with increasing magnetic field. A large magnetic entropy change of ~1 J mol−1 K−1 was obtained under a magnetic field change of 0–10 T.