ferromagnetic
(adjective)
Of a material, such as iron or nickel, that is easily magnetized.
Examples of ferromagnetic in the following topics:
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Ferromagnetism
- Ferromagnetism is the property of certain materials that enables them to form magnets and be attracted to magnets.
- An everyday example of ferromagnetism is a refrigerator magnet used to hold notes on a refrigerator door.
- Domains are small and randomly oriented in an unmagnetized ferromagnetic object.
- Thus ferromagnetism only occurs in materials with partially filled shells.
- Such materials are called ferromagnetic, after the Latin word for iron, ferrum.
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Ferromagnets and Electromagnets
- Such magnets are called ferromagnets.
- These materials are called ferromagnetic, after the Latin word ferrum (iron).
- In an unmagnetized ferromagnetic object, domains are small and randomly oriented.
- Due to the high magnetic permeability μ of the ferromagnetic material, the ferromagnetic core increases the magnetic field to thousands of times the strength of the field of the coil alone.
- This is called a ferromagnetic-core or iron-core electromagnet.
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Permanent Magnets
- Permanent magnets are objects made from ferromagnetic material that produce a persistent magnetic field.
- Materials that can be magnetized, which are also the ones that are strongly attracted to a magnet, are called ferromagnetic.
- When a magnet is brought near a previously unmagnetized ferromagnetic material, it causes local magnetization of the material with unlike poles closest .
- However, before magnetization these regions are small and randomly oriented throughout the unmagnetized ferromagnetic objects, so there is no net magnetic field.
- This arrangement can become permanent when the ferromagnetic material is heated and then cooled.
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Solenoids, Current Loops, and Electromagnets
- Combining a ferromagnet with an electromagnet can produce particularly strong magnetic effects.
- Whenever strong magnetic effects are needed (such as lifting scrap metal, or in particle accelerators) electromagnets are enhanced by ferromagnetic materials.
- Currents, including those associated with other submicroscopic particles like protons, allow us to explain ferromagnetism and all other magnetic effects.
- Ferromagnetism, for example, results from an internal cooperative alignment of electron spins, possible in some materials but not in others.
- An electromagnet induces regions of permanent magnetism on a floppy disk coated with a ferromagnetic material.
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Paramagnetism and Diamagnetism
- Unlike ferromagnets, paramagnets do not retain any magnetization in the absence of an externally applied magnetic field, because thermal motion randomizes the spin orientations responsible for magnetism.
- However, for materials that display some other form of magnetism (such as ferromagnetism or paramagnetism), the diamagnetic contribution becomes negligible.
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Transformers
- A typical construction of a simple transformer has two coils wound on a ferromagnetic core that is laminated to minimize eddy currents.
- Any change in current in the primary induces a current in the secondary.The figure shows a simple transformer with two coils wound on either sides of a laminated ferromagnetic core.
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Energy in a Magnetic Field
- For hysteretic materials such as ferromagnets and superconductors, the work needed also depends on how the magnetic field is created.