Anisotropic magnetocaloric effect in single crystal Cr₂Te₃.

Here we report anisotropic magnetic and magnetocaloric properties in Cr₂Te₃ single crystals. The maximum magnetic entropy change −ΔS_M^max is 4.50 J kg⁻¹ K⁻¹ along the easy c-axis (3.36 J kg⁻¹ K⁻¹ along hard ab-plane) and the relative cooling power is 296.7 J kg⁻¹ along the easy axis (183.84 J kg⁻¹ for the hard axis) near T_C with a magnetic field change of 9 T. The magneto-crystalline anisotropy constant is estimated to be 468.5 kJ m⁻³ at 146 K, decreasing to 148.6 kJ m⁻³ at 168 K. Meanwhile, the maximum of the rotational magnetic entropy change between the c-axis and the ab-plane is about 1.14 J kg⁻¹ K⁻¹ with a magnetic-field change of 9 T. Using the scaling analysis of ΔS_M, we estimate the critical exponents which indicate a 2D-Ising type magnetic system. The scaling analysis of ΔS_M curves falls onto universal curves, indicating the accuracy of our critical exponent estimation.