Magnetocaloric effect in heavy rare-earth elements doped Fe-based bulk metallic glasses with tunable Curie temperature

The effects of heavy rare earth (RE) additions on the Curie temperature (TC) and magnetocaloric effect of the Fe-RE-B-Nb (RE = Gd, Dy and Ho) bulk metallic glasses were studied. The type of dopping RE element and its concentration can easily tune TC in a large temperature range of 120 K without significantly decreasing the magnetic entropy change (ΔSM) and refrigerant capacity (RC) of the alloys. The observed values of ΔSM and RC of these alloys compare favorably with those of recently reported Fe-based metallic glasses with enhanced RC compared to Gd5Ge1.9Si2Fe0.1. The tunable TC and large glass-forming ability of these RE doped Fe-based bulk metallic glasses can be used in a wide temperature range with the final required shapes.