Abstract
In this work, the magnetothermal characteristics and magnetocaloric effect in YFe
3
and HoFe
3
compounds are calculated as function of temperature and magnetic field. These properties were investigated using the two-sublattice mean field model and the first-principles DFT calculation using the WIEN2k code. The two-sublattice model of the mean-field theory was used to calculate the temperature and field-dependences of magnetization, magnetic heat capacity, magnetic entropy, and the isothermal change in entropy ∆S
m
. We used the WIEN2k code to determine the elastic constants and, subsequently, the bulk and shear moduli, the Debye temperature, and the density-of-states at E
f
. According to the Hill prediction, YFe
3
has bulk and shear moduli of roughly 99.3 and 101.2 GPa respectively. The Debye temperature is ≈ 500 K, and the average sound speed is ≈ 4167 m/s. In fields up to 60 kOe and at temperatures up to and above the Curie point for both substances, the trapezoidal method was used to determine ∆S
m
. For instance, the highest ∆S
m
values for YFe
3
and HoFe
3
in 30 kOe are approximately 0.8 and 0.12 J/mol. K, respectively. For the Y and Ho systems, respectively, the adiabatic temperature change in a 3 T field decreases at a rate of around 1.3 and 0.4 K/T. The ferro (or ferrimagnetic) to paramagnetic phase change in these two compounds, as indicated by the temperature and field dependences of the magnetothermal and magnetocaloric properties, ∆S
m
and ∆T
ad
, is a second-order phase transition. The Arrott plots and the universal curve for YFe
3
were also calculated and their features give an additional support to the second order nature of the phase transition.