## 3 Results and Discussion
### Deformation Behavior of the Composites via a Magnetic Field  
For the investigation of the shape deformation behavior of the composite under an externally applied magnetic field, the 10 vol.% SC Ni-Mn-Ga particles/silicone composite were examined. The shapes of the composite at (a) 0 kOe and (b) 3.7 kOe are shown in Figure S4 in the Supplementary Materials, respectively. It was found that after the introduction of the magnetic field to the composite (as shown in Figure S2 in the Supplementary Materials), the detection of the image was affected since the magnet was very close to the X-ray source and the rotation of the stage was also influenced. It was thus found that the resolution of the image was low in the case of the 3.7 kOe magnetic field-applied observation (Figure S4b). It was also found that, in contrast to the compression examinations (Figure 11), no apparent overall shape deformation could be found in these two images. In addition to the 10 vol.% SC Ni-Mn-Ga particles/silicone composite shown in Figure S4 in the Supplementary Materials, the (004)\({}_{\rm m}\) pole figures of the 40 vol.% SC Ni-Mn-Ga particles/silicone composite were also examined by applying a (a) 0 kOe and  
Figure 12: (004)\({}_{\rm m}\) pole figures of the 40 vol.% SC Ni-Mn-Ga particles/epoxy composite, which was compressed with (**a**) 0% strain and (**b**) 45% strain at RT under ambient condition. (b) 3.7 kOe magnetic field, respectively (Figure 13). It was found that, in contrast to the compressive stress-applied composite (Figure 12), no obvious difference could be observed between these two textures before and after the introduction of the magnetic field. This also indicates that the martensitic variant reorientation (MVR) almost did not take place after the application of the magnetic field of 3.7 kOe to the composite (Figure 13b). Some of the causes for this occurrence are as follows. Judging from the case of the SC Ni-Mn-Ga cube specimen (Figure 6), it was discerned that the MVR took place at around 2.5 kOe, where a slight \"jump\" of the magnetization can be observed in the magnetization curve. Therefore, first, it is assumed that the 3.7 kOe applied to the composite cannot be high enough to trigger the MVR in the composite, where SC Ni-Mn-Ga particles were additionally constrained by the elastic constraint of the surrounding silicone matrix. Second, it is also probable that the MVR may be too smeared to be observed in the case of the 40 vol.% SC Ni-Mn-Ga particles/silicone composite (Figure 13). The results of SC Ni-Mn-Ga alloys and various composites, which were deformed under different fields (i.e., compressive or magnetic fields), are summarized in Table 3.  
Figure 13: The (004)\({}_{\rm m}\) pole figures of the 40 vol.% SC Ni-Mn-Ga particles/silicone composite under a (a) 0 kOe and (b) 3.7 kOe magnetic field. In our previous publications [35; 38; 39; 41], the shape deformation, which originates from the MVR, was observed in the 30 vol.% SC Ni-Mn-Ga particles/silicone composite. In that study, the SC Ni-Mn-Ga particles were cured in the acrylic mold under a magnetic field of 1 T after mixing with silicone rubber. In contrast, this study was conducted with an increase in the volume percentage of SC Ni-Mn-Ga particles to 40 vol.%; nevertheless, the MVR was not observed after introducing an external magnetic field of 3.7 kOe. Therefore, it is confirmed that the magnetic curing process to make the SC particle chains is a critical process for the shape deformation of the composites by applying an external magnetic field instead of increasing the volume percentage of the SC particles. Another assumption for the disappearance of the magnetic-field-induced MVR can be attributed to size distribution of the SC Ni-Mn-Ga particles; therefore, more studies will be conducted in the future to confirm the shape deformation behavior by applying a magnetic field to the composites.