Unusual rare earth compound opens doorway to new class of functional materials
https://phys.org/news/2018-07-unusual-rare-earth-compound-doorway.html
But the Ames Laboratory research group found that a rare earth compound made of Europium and Indium, Eu2In, displayed a startlingly sharp magnetic phase transition accompanied with a giant magnetocaloric effect (change in temperature) and no hysteresis.
"This was a very surprising result and one of the least expected places to find such a phenomenon," said Yaroslav Mudryk, an Ames Laboratory scientist. "So this represents the first example of what potentially may become a new class of materials."