What are magnetic materials?

Magnetic materials refer to substances that can directly or indirectly generate magnetism, such as transition elements iron, cobalt, nickel and their alloys. Magnetic materials can be classified into soft magnetic materials and hard magnetic materials based on the difficulty of demagnetization after magnetization. Materials that are easy to demagnetize after magnetization are called soft magnetic materials, while those that are difficult to demagnetize are called hard magnetic materials.

Hard magnetic materials, also known as permanent magnetic materials, refer to materials that can retain a strong residual magnetism after being magnetized by an external magnetic field and the external magnetic field is removed. They have strong coercive force, high residual magnetization intensity, large magnetic energy product, wide hysteresis loop, high residual flux density and high stability. Hard magnetic materials mainly include rare earth hard magnetic materials, metallic hard magnetic materials and ferrite hard magnetic materials. Currently, the most widely used ones are neodymium iron boron strong magnets and ferrite magnets. Neodymium iron boron magnetic materials are alloys of neodymium, iron oxide, etc., also known as magnetic steel, and are the latest development of rare earth permanent magnetic materials. Neodymium iron boron has extremely high magnetic energy product, coercive force and high energy density. Ferrite magnets are produced by powder metallurgy methods, have low residual magnetism, low recovery magnetic permeability, high coercive force and strong anti-demagnetization ability.

Soft magnetic materials
The main functions of soft magnetic materials are to conduct magnetic fields, convert and transmit electromagnetic energy. They require high magnetic permeability, high magnetic induction intensity, narrow hysteresis loops, and low magnetic loss. Compared with hard magnetic materials, they have lower coercivity and narrower hysteresis loops. Soft magnetic materials mainly include pure iron and carbon steel, nickel-iron alloys, magnetic ceramic materials, amorphous alloys, and nanocrystalline soft magnetic