Large magnetocaloric effect in manganese perovskite La 0.67- x Bi x Ba 0.33 MnO 3 near room temperature.

La 0.67- x Bi x Ba 0.33 MnO 3 ( x = 0 and 0.05) ceramics were prepared via the sol-gel method. Structural, magnetic and magnetocaloric effects have been systematically studied. X-ray diffraction shows that all the compounds crystallize in the rhombohedral structure with the R 3̄ c space group. By analyzing the field and temperature dependence of magnetization, it is observed that both samples undergo a second order magnetic phase transition near T C . The value of T C decreases from 340 K to 306 K when increasing x from 0.00 to 0.05, respectively. The reported magnetic entropy change for both samples was considerably remarkable and equal to 5.8 J kg -1 K -1 for x = 0.00 and 7.3 J kg -1 K -1 for x = 0.05, respectively, for μ 0 H = 5 T, confirming that these materials are promising candidates for magnetic refrigeration applications. The mean-field theory was used to study the magnetocaloric effect within the thermodynamics of the model. Satisfactory agreement between experimental data and the mean-field theory has been found.