Coupled caloric effects in multiferroics

We propose a conception – coupled caloric effect   where the enhanced caloric effects originate from the coupling among magnetic, ferroelectric, and structural degrees of freedom. Specifically, as the magneto-electric case, the magnitude of the coupled caloric effect was evaluated for a ferromagnetic–ferroelectric system using a phenomenological calculation based on Landau phase transition theory. The isothermal entropy change is greatly enhanced by increasing the magneto-electric coupling strength. This work indicates that the caloric effect in a ferromagnetic–ferroelectric coupled system consists of pure magnetic entropy change (Δ_SM$\mathrm{\Delta }{S}_M$), pure ferroelectric one (Δ_SE$\mathrm{\Delta }{S}_E$), and coupled one (Δ_SME$\mathrm{\Delta }{S}_{\mathit{ME}}$) that plays a significant part. The counterpart of the last one in magneto-structural coupled system was usually neglected. Our study provides a route to energy-efficient refrigeration via realization of coupling among various ferroic orders.