Large magnetocaloric effect and near-zero thermal hysteresis in the rare earth intermetallic Tb Dy Co compounds.

We report the magnetocaloric effect in a Tb Dy Co compound which exhibits a wide working temperature window around the Curie temperature (T ) and delivers a large refrigerant capacity (RC) with near-zero thermal hysteresis. Specifically, the wide full width at half maxima ([Formula: see text]) can reach up to 62 K and the RC value changes from 216.5 to 274.3 J Kg when the external magnetic field increases to 5 T. Such magnetocaloric effects are attributed to a magnetic and structural transition from a paramagnetic and cubic phase to a ferromagnetic (M along [1 1 1] direction) and rhombohedral phase or ferromagnetic (M along [0 0 1] direction) and tetragonal phase.