Review of Modern Theoretical Approaches for Study of Magnetocaloric Materials

For a quarter-century since the discovery of the giant magnetocaloric effect (MCE), the world scientific community has paid great attention to comprehensive studies of magnetically ordered compounds with a first-order magnetostructural phase transformation. The interest in the study is due both to the potential application of the MCE in magnetic cooling technology and the need to provide a deeper understanding of the fundamental concepts of the problems and mechanisms underlying the magnetostructural transition. This review covers the thermodynamic foundations of the MCE, a comparative analysis of magnetocaloric materials with magnetostructural phase transitions, and outlines the phenomenological and microscopic models for predicting magnetocaloric properties developed by the global scientific community over the past 20 years.