Local strains, calorimetry, and magnetoresistance in adaptive martensite transition in multiple nanostrips of Ni39+xMn50Sn11−x(x ≤ 2) alloys

• Main Author: A A Prasanna and Shanker Ram
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2013-01-01
• Series: Science and Technology of Advanced Materials
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1468-6996/14/1/015004
• ISSN: 1468-6996; 1878-5514

Ni39+xMn50Sn11−x (x = 0.5, 1.0, 1.5 and 2) alloys comprise multiple martensite nanostrips of nanocrystallites when cast in small discs, for example, ~15 mm diameter and 8 mm width. A single martensite phase with a L10 tetragonal crystal structure at room temperature can be formed at a critical Sn content of 9.0 at.% (x = 2), whereas an austenite cubic L21 phase turns up at smaller x ≤ 1.5. The decrease in the Sn content from x = 2 to 0.5 also results in a gradual increase in the crystallite size from 11 to 17 nm. Scanning electron microscopy images reveal arrays of regularly displaced multiple martensite strips (x ≥ 1.5) with an average thickness of 20 nm. As forced oscillators, these strips carry over the local strains, magnetic dipoles, and thermions simultaneously in a martensite–austenite (or reverse) phase transition. A net residual enthalpy change ΔHM↔A = −0.12 J g−1 arises in the process that lacks reversibility between the cooling and heating cycles. A large magnetoresistance of (–)26% at 10 T is observed together with a large entropy change of 11.8 mJ g−1 K−1, nearly twice the value ever reported in such alloys, in the isothermal magnetization at 311 K. The ΔHM↔A irreversibility accounts for a thermal hysteresis in the electrical resistivity. Strain induced in the martensite strips leads them to have a higher electrical resistivity than that of the higher-temperature austenite phase. A model considering time-dependent enthalpy relaxation explains the irreversibility features.