Giant caloric effects in spin-chain materials

The giant electro- and elastocaloric effects in spin-chain materials are predicted. The theory is based on the exact quantum mechanical solution of the problem. It is shown that the giant jumps in the entropy and the temperature caused by the caloric effect are weakly affected by the initial temperature. The effect can be used for the cooling of new quantum devices (like systems of qubits in quantum computers). On the other hand, since large changes are predicted in the narrow neighborhood of the critical point, the predicted effect can be used in ultrasensitive electric and stress sensors for modern microelectronics.