B01

In this second funding period, the project continues to focus on magneto-structural phase transition in La(Fe,Si)₁₃- and in this funding period also LaFe₁₂B₆-based alloys, the latter of interest due to their potential for magnetocaloric (MC) liquefaction of hydrogen. Our knowledge will be expanded to other first-order phase transition materials by validating the universality of our findings on Ni-Mn-X and Fe-Rh (projects B04, B05, B06, B12). The tunability of hysteresis will be exploited using our newly developed experimental setups (projects A03, B05), allowing to determine the lattice contribution to the total entropy change and calculate elastic constants on the one hand; and on the other hand, focusing on practical aspects of using magnetocaloric heat exchangers (project B11). The results will be combined with the modelling of magneto-mechanical responses (project B13).