Combining multiple degrees of freedom in strongly correlated materials such as transition-metal oxides would lead to fascinating magnetic and magnetocaloric features. Herein, the strain effects are used to markedly tailor the magnetic and magnetocaloric properties of PrVO₃ thin films. The selection of an appropriate thickness and substrate enables us to dramatically decrease the coercive magnetic field from 2.4 T previously observed in sintered PVO₃ bulk to 0.05 T for compressive thin films making from the PrVO₃ compound a nearly soft magnet. This is associated with a marked enhancement of the magnetic moment and the magnetocaloric effect that reaches unusual maximum values of roughly 4.86 μ_B and 56.8 J/kg K with the magnetic field change of 6 T applied in the sample plane in the cryogenic temperature range (3 K), respectively. This work strongly suggests that taking advantage of different degrees of freedom and the exploitation of multiple instabilities in a nanoscale regime is a promising strategy for unveiling unexpected phases accompanied by a large magnetocaloric effect in oxides.

Recently, a reversible and a giant rotating magnetocaloric effect has been pointed out in the multiferroic TbMn₂O₅ single crystal, opening the way for new designs of low-temperature magnetic cooling. In this paper, we report a preliminary theoretical work with the aim of enlarging our understanding on the electronic, magnetic and accordingly magnetocaloric features of the TbMn₂O₅ compound. Particularly, the TbMn₂O₅ magnetic anisotropy is analyzed in terms of X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) and X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) spectra.