Magnetocaloric effect in the Laves phase pseudobinary Er1-cYcCo2

In this article we study the magnetocaloric effect in the pseudobinary Er1-cYcCo2 using a theoretical model, in which the localized 4f spins are immersed in an effective subsystem of itinerant electrons. The interaction between the localized 4f spins is treated in the molecular field approximation and the disorder entering in the Er site is considered in the virtual crystal approximation. Our theoretical results for the adiabatic temperature change and for the isothermal magnetic entropy change with magnetic field are in good agreement with experimental data. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.