A comparative study on magnetic behaviors and magnetocaloric effect in heavy rare-earth antiferromagnetic orthoferrites RFeO3 (R = Dy, Ho and Er)

The heavy rare-earth GdFeO3-type RFeO3 (R = Dy, Ho and Er) orthoferrites (space group Pnma, N 62) show spin reorientation transition characterized by a turning point on the magnetization curves. The basic Arrott plots curves showing positive slopes confirm the second-order nature of the spin reorientation and the transition temperature TSR is estimated to be ∼45 K, ∼53 K and ∼94 K for DyFeO3, HoFeO3 and ErFeO3, respectively. In addition, magnetic entropy change −ΔSM of the three samples is calculated to be 11.4, 9.8 and 7.4 J kg−1 K−1 at 10 K and 50 kOe, respectively. The field sensitive antiferromagnetic state and competitive magnetocaloric performances in RFeO3 have been attracting considerable interest for the possible applications in spintronic devices.