magneticthermal

Magneticthermal is an informal umbrella term used to describe the study of interactions between magnetic and thermal phenomena in materials and devices. It encompasses how magnetic order and spin-dependent transport couple to heat and temperature, as well as how thermal conditions influence magnetization and magnetic phase transitions. In practice, the term often appears in discussions of magnetocaloric and spin caloritronic effects, and in technologies that exploit magnetic heating or cooling.

Magnetocaloric effect (MCE) is a central phenomenon, where changes in magnetic field alter a material’s entropy and temperature, enabling solid-state cooling without greenhouse gases. Spin caloritronics covers the interplay between spin currents and heat currents, including the spin Seebeck effect, where a thermal gradient generates spin current, and the spin Peltier effect, where spin currents produce heat flow. Magnetic hyperthermia uses alternating magnetic fields to heat ferromagnetic nanoparticles for medical treatments; related magnetothermal therapies use localized heating to ablate tissue.

Common materials include magnetocaloric alloys based on gadolinium and iron-based intermetallics (such as La-Fe-Si compounds), as well as ferrites and manganites. Nanostructured magnets and composite materials enable enhanced coupling and tunable temperature ranges. Research spans experimental characterization, thermodynamic modeling, and device concepts for cooling, energy harvesting, and thermal management in electronics.

Challenges include achieving large reversible entropy changes with minimal hysteresis, operating near practical temperatures, material cost, and integration into scalable devices. The field overlaps with caloritronics and spintronics, and the term magneticthermal is primarily used as a descriptive label rather than a strict scientific discipline.