Abstract
We present an extensive study of the magnetic properties of a novel La0.5Ba0.5MnO3 perovskite material prepared by the hydrothermal method. The explored sample was structurally studied by the x-ray diffraction (XRD) method which confirms the formation of a pure cubic phase of a perovskite structure with Pm3m space group. The magnetic properties were probed by employing temperature M (T) and external magnetic field M (H-o) dependence of magnetization measurements. A magnetic phase transition from ferromagnetic to paramagnetic phase occurs at 339 K in this sample. The maximum magnetic entropy change (vertical bar Delta S-M(max)vertical bar) took a value of 1.4 J kg(-1) K-1 at the applied magnetic field of 4.0 T for the explored sample and has also been found to occur at Curie temperature (T-C). This large entropy change might be instigated from the abrupt reduction of magnetization at T-C. The magnetocaloric effect (MCE) is maximum at T-C as represented by M (H-o) isotherms. The relative cooling power (RCP) is 243.2 J kg(-1) at H-o =4.0 T. Moreover, the critical properties near T-C have been probed from magnetic data. The critical exponents , , and with values 3.82, 0.42, and 1.2 are close to the values predicted by the 3D Ising model. Additionally, the authenticity of the critical exponents has been confirmed by the scaling equation of state and all data fall on two separate branches, one for T < T-C and the other for T > T-C, signifying that the critical exponents obtained in this work are accurate.