Abstract
An important problem in developing magnetic refrigerator is selection of the magnetic refrigerants. The main purposes of this paper are to discuss the physical properties necessary for the magnetic refrigerant, such as the magnetic, thermal and magnetocaloric characters, and to show a brief review on our recent investigation. Magnetic refrigerators can be roughly divided into two groups; one for the Carnot type magnetic refrigerator below 20K and the other for the Ericsson type refrigerator. Therefore, in the present paper, the physical properties requisite for those two kinds of refrigerants are separately discussed. Then, the recent several results are shown. Finally a brief prospect of the magnetic refrigerant is given.
