Magnetothermal cooling with a phase separated manganite

Abstract

We show that temperature of a current (I=20 mA) carrying manganite (Nd 0.5 Ca0.5 Mn0.93 Ni0.07 O 3) in presence of a magnetic field (H) decreases abruptly as much as ΔT=45 K (7 K) accompanied by a steplike decrease in magnetoresistance at a critical value of H when the base temperature is 40 K (100 K). The magnitude of Δ T and the position of magnetoresistance step decrease toward lower H with decreasing amplitude of the current. We discuss possible origins of the current and magnetic-field driven temperature change which may find applications in magnetothermal refrigeration besides magnetocaloric effect. © 2009 American Institute of Physics.