The magnetic and magnetocaloric properties of polycrystalline La 0.70 x Sr x )MnO 3 :Ag 10% manganite have been investigated. All the compositions are crystallized in single phase orthorhombic Pbnm space group. Both, the Insulator-Metal transition temperature (T IM ) and Curie temperature (T c ) are observed at 298 K for x = 0.10 composition. Though both T IM and T c are nearly unchanged with Ag addition, the MR is slightly improved. The MR at 300K is found to be as large as 31% with magnetic field change of 1Tesla, whereas it reaches up to 49% at magnetic field of 3Tesla for La 0.70 Ca 0.20 Sr 0.10 MnO 3 :Ag 0.10 sample. The maximum entropy change (∆S Mmax ) is 7.6 J.Kg -1 .K -1 upon the magnetic field change of 5Tesla, near its T c (300.5 K).
IntroductionManganites are considered to be promising candidate for the technological applications such as bolometer and magnetic refrigeration [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. Along with the all other fascinating properties, the presence of magnetocaloric nature makes them more outstanding material. Practically one desires to have higher Temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR), MR and magnetic entropy change near room temperature i.e. at around 300 K. It is seen that the maximum MR as well as TCR in hole-doped manganites occur near the insulator-metal (IM) transition T IM being accompanied with ferromagnetic (FM)-paramagnetic (PM) transition (Curie Temperature T c ).The steep transition about IM crossover determines the sensitivity as well as active zone for these sensors. Since magnetic refrigeration has a lot of advantages over gas refrigeration, manganites have been getting attention [4,[6][7]. Also, since the magnetic properties of perovskite 2 manganites, Curie temperature and saturation magnetization, are strongly doping-dependent, these typical materials are believed to be good candidates for magnetic refrigeration at various temperatures [5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. The magnetocaloric effect (MCE) is an isothermal magnetic entropy change or an adiabatic temperature change (∆T ad ) of a magnetic material caused by an applied magnetic field. The adiabatic temperature change ∆T ad is mainly affected by the magnetic entropy change |∆S M | [12]. The magnetic entropy change |∆S M | induced by a magnetic field change is another important parameter to describe the magnetocaloric effect. A constant magnetic entropy change over the working temperature range is required in an ideal Ericsson refrigeration cycle [13]. It has been observed that heavy rare-earth and their compounds are good candidates for finding a large MCE, due to their large magnetic moments [14,15]. The highest MCE involving a secondorder transition is found in gadolinium, which can be used to achieve cooling between 270 and 310 K [14]. However, the cost of a magnetic refrigerant using gadolinium is quite expensive, which limits the usage of it as an active magnetic refrigerant (AMR) in magnetic refrigerators. Further efforts to investigate new materials exhibiting large MCE in relatively low applied field a...