Magnetic refrigeration

Magnetic refrigeration is a cooling technology based on the magnetocaloric effect. This technique can be used to attain extremely low temperatures, as well as the ranges used in common refrigerators. A magnetocaloric material warms up when a magnetic field is applied. The warming is due to changes in the internal state of the material releasing heat. When the magnetic field is removed, the material returns to its original state, reabsorbing the heat, and returning to original temperature. To achieve refrigeration, the material is allowed to radiate away its heat while in the magnetized hot state. Removing the magnetism, the material then cools to below its original temperature. The effect was first observed in 1881 by a German physicist Emil Warburg, followed by French physicist P. Weiss and Swiss physicist A. Piccard in 1917. The fundamental principle was suggested by P. Debye (1926) and W. Giauque (1927). The first working magnetic refrigerators were constructed by several groups beginning in 1933. Magnetic refrigeration was the first method developed for cooling below about 0.3 K (a temperature attainable by pumping on 3He vapors). The magnetocaloric effect (MCE, from magnet and calorie) is a magneto-thermodynamic phenomenon in which a temperature change of a suitable material is caused by exposing the material to a changing magnetic field. This is also known by low temperature physicists as adiabatic demagnetization. In that part of the refrigeration process, a decrease in the strength of an externally applied magnetic field allows the magnetic domains of a magnetocaloric material to become disoriented from the magnetic field by the agitating action of the thermal energy (phonons) present in the material. If the material is isolated so that no energy is allowed to (re)migrate into the material during this time, (i.e., an adiabatic process) the temperature drops as the domains absorb the thermal energy to perform their reorientation.