Glass-Coated Ni₅₀Mn₃₇Sb₁₃ Wires: Synthesis, Structural, Magnetic, and Magnetocaloric Characterization

This work reports the microstructure, structural, magnetic, and magnetocaloric characteristics of polycrystalline glass-coated Ni50Mn37Sb13 wires (Ws) obtained by the Taylor-Ulitovsky technique. A bulk alloy of the same nominal composition was used as a reference sample to compare the results obtained. The Ws exhibited a remarkably uniform diameter, averaging around <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$130~\mu $ </tex-math></inline-formula> m. Elemental chemical composition analyses reveal slight Mn and Sb content deviations from the nominal values. At room temperature, austenite shows an L<inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$2_{1}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-type cubic crystal structure (space group Fm-3 m) and undergoes a second-order magnetic phase transition with a Curie temperature (<inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$T_{\text {C}}^{\mathbf {A}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) of 332 K. The thermomagnetic curve measured under a field of 5 mT in the temperature range from 150 to 400 K shows the occurrence of a broad first-order martensitic-like phase transition at a temperature of around 233 K. One notable room temperature magnetic characteristic of these samples is their ability to achieve saturation magnetization at a low magnetic field strength of around 0.15 T. For a magnetic field change of 2 T, the produced Ws show a maximum magnetic entropy change <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$|\Delta {S}_{\text {M}}|^{\max }$ </tex-math></inline-formula> of 1.3 Jkg−1K−1 at the second-order transition of austenite.