2021/09/14 by D. M. Polishchuk, Milton Persson, Polishchuk, D. M. +13
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #FOS: Physical sciences #Magnetic and transport properties of perovskites and related materials #Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) #Multiferroics and related materials
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2109.06946
openalex publication_date 2021/09/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The magnetocaloric effect in exchange-coupled synthetic-antiferromagnet multilayers is investigated experimentally and theoretically. We observe a temperature-controlled inversion of the effect, where the entropy increases on switching the individual ferromagnetic layers from anti-parallel to parallel alignment near their Curie point. Using a microscopic analytical model as well as numerical atomistic-spin simulations of the system, we explain the observed effect as due to the interplay between the intra- and inter-layer exchange interactions, which either add up or counteract to effectively modulate the Curie temperature of the dilute ferromagnetic layers. The proposed method of designing tunable, strongly magneto-caloric materials should be of interest for such applications as heat-assisted spintronics and magnetic refrigeration.