Giant Magnetocaloric Effect in Manganites

In this review we briefly discuss the magnetocaloric properties of the manganites. It is evidenced that the maximum entropy change observed in manganites exceeds that of gadolinium (the prototype material for room temperature refrigerators). For the manganites characterized by second-order magnetic phase transitions the scaling hypothesis is discussed. It is shown that simple phenomenological model with only one fitting parameter, presented in this paper, satisfactorily describes experimental observations.