Caloric Effects in Ferroic Materials: New Concepts for Cooling

Refrigeration is one of the primary uses for electrical energy and an important contributor to worldwide CO2 emissions. Both of these issues can be mitigated if caloric effects in solid materials are fully utilized. In particular, materials with ferroic phase transitions, which give rise to magneto-, electro-, and elasto-caloric effects, are promising candidates. Because these refrigerants are in the solid state, the corresponding cooling technology also eliminates the need for halo-carbon refrigerants with high global warming potential. This Special Issue gives an overview on recent breakthroughs in the research on magnetocaloric, elastocaloric, and electrocaloric materials and their implementation in more efficient cooling devices, as obtained within the German Priority Program Ferroic Cooling (SPP1599). As a brief introduction to the in-depth Reviews and Full Papers included in the Special Issue, a ferroic cooling cycle is sketched and the influences of magnetic, electric, and stress fields on ferroic materials are summarized in this Editorial.