Magnetic refrigeration
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Magnetic refrigeration is a cooling technology presently (2003) being developed by a partnership of the United States Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory and Astronautics Corp. of America. A proof-of-principle model was successfully demonstrated in 1996.
The technology uses the magneto-calorific effect, which is the tendency of certain materials, such as the metallic element gadolinium, to heat up when placed in a magnetic field and to cool down when removed from the field.
This technique has been used for many years in cryogenic systems for producing further cooling in systems already cooled to temperatures of 4 Kelvin and lower (see Adiabatic_demagnetization).
Source
Ames Laboratory news release of May 25, 1999 at http://www.ameslab.gov/News/release/crada.html.