YbPd$_2$In: a promising candidate to strong entropy accumulation at very low temperature

We report on synthesis, crystal structure, magnetic, thermodynamic and transport properties of the new compound YbPd$_2$In, crystallizing as a Heusler type. A trivalent state of the rare earth was found from the fitting of the magnetic susceptibility. The compound is characterized by very weak magnetic interactions and a negligible Kondo effect. No long range magnetic order develops above 500 mK, and below 4 K $C_m/T$ increases steeply with a $\sim 1/T^2$ dependence. The resulting large electronic entropy is drastically suppressed by the application of magnetic field, placing YbPd$_2$In as a very good candidate for adiabatic demagnetization cooling.