Investigation on magnetocaloric effect and critical behaviour of a novel ternary Fe87Nd11B2 metallic glass ribbon

Abstract In this work, a novel ternary Fe87Nd11B2 metallic glass (MG) with good formability and extraordinary magnetocaloric effect was fabricated in ribbon form. Magnetic measurements reveal a Curie temperature (Tc) of 344 K, a freezing temperature (Tf) of 50 K, and negligible magnetic hysteresis at 200 K. A high peak value of magnetic entropy change of 4.75 J/(kg×K) is achieved under 5 T, which notably surpasses other MGs with Tc near or even above room temperature, likely attributable to the high Nd content. The Fe87Nd11B2 MG ribbon also exhibits high retention ratios of temperature-averaged entropy change, along with large refrigeration capacity and relative cooling power. Critical exponents determined by the modified Arrott plots and Kouvel-Fisher methods are close to the predicted values of the 3D-Heisenberg model governed by short-range exchange interactions. These findings highlight the strong potential of the Fe87Nd11B2 MG ribbon for practical magnetic refrigeration applications.