Abstract
The study of the magnetocaloric effect in nematic liquid crystals is being reported for the first time. We evaluate, in the mean field approximation, the thermal dependence and magnitude of the magnetocaloric effect by applying the theory of the partial quenching of the fluctuations of nematic layers originally predicted by de Gennes and developed by Poggi, Filippini and Malraison. A comparison with the classical magnetocaloric effect in para- and ferromagnetics is also presented.