Ferromagnetism
Encyclopedia
Ferromagnetism is the basic mechanism by which certain materials (such as iron
) form permanent magnets, or are attracted to magnet
s. In physics
, several different types of magnetism
are distinguished. Ferromagnetism (including ferrimagnetism
) is the strongest type; it is the only type that creates forces strong enough to be felt, and is responsible for the common phenomena of magnetism encountered in everyday life. Other substances respond weakly to magnetic fields with two other types of magnetism, paramagnetism
and diamagnetism
, but the forces are so weak that they can only be detected by sensitive instruments in a laboratory. An everyday example of ferromagnetism is a refrigerator magnet
used to hold notes on a refrigerator door. The attraction between a magnet and ferromagnetic material is "the quality of magnetism first apparent to the ancient world, and to us today".
Permanent magnets (materials that can be magnetized
by an external magnetic field
and remain magnetized after the external field is removed) are either ferromagnetic or ferrimagnetic, as are other materials that are noticeably attracted to them. Only a few substances are ferromagnetic; the common ones are iron
, nickel
, cobalt
and their alloys, some compounds of rare earth metals, and a few naturally-occurring minerals such as lodestone
.
of the material, leading to a stricter definition of "ferromagnetism" that is often used to distinguish it from ferrimagnetism. In particular, a material is "ferromagnetic" in this narrower sense only if all of its magnetic ions add a positive contribution to the net magnetization. If some of the magnetic ions subtract from the net magnetization (if they are partially anti-aligned), then the material is "ferrimagnetic".If the moments of the aligned and anti-aligned ions balance completely so as to have zero net magnetization, despite the magnetic ordering, then it is an antiferromagnet. These alignment effects only occur at temperature
s below a certain critical temperature, called the Curie temperature (for ferromagnets and ferrimagnets) or the Néel temperature
(for antiferromagnets).
Among the first investigations of ferromagnetism are the pioneering works of Aleksandr Stoletov
on measurement of the magnetic permeability of ferromagnetics, known as the Stoletov curve
.
The table on the right lists a selection of ferromagnetic and ferrimagnetic compounds, along with the temperature above which they cease to exhibit spontaneous magnetization (see Curie temperature).
Ferromagnetism is a property not just of the chemical make-up of a material, but of its crystalline structure and microscopic organization. There are ferromagnetic metal alloys whose constituents are not themselves ferromagnetic, called Heusler alloy
s, named after Fritz Heusler. Conversely there are non-magnetic alloys, such as types of stainless steel
, composed almost exclusively of ferromagnetic metals.
One can also make amorphous (non-crystalline) ferromagnetic metallic alloys by very rapid quenching (cooling) of a liquid alloy. These have the advantage that their properties are nearly isotropic (not aligned along a crystal axis); this results in low coercivity, low hysteresis
loss, high permeability, and high electrical resistivity. A typical such material is a transition metal-metalloid alloy, made from about 80% transition metal (usually Fe, Co, or Ni) and a metalloid component (B
, C
, Si
, P
, or Al
) that lowers the melting point.
A relatively new class of exceptionally strong ferromagnetic materials are the rare-earth magnet
s. They contain lanthanide elements that are known for their ability to carry large magnetic moments in well-localized f-orbitals.
compounds are ferromagnets at room temperature or become ferromagnets below the Curie temperature (TC). Pu
P
is one actinide pnictide that is a paramagnet and has cubic symmetry
at room temperature, but upon cooling undergoes a lattice distortion to tetragonal
when cooled to below its Tc = 125 K. PuP has an easy axis of <100>, so that
at 5 K. The lattice distortion is presumably a consequence of strain induced by the magnetoelastic interactions as the magnetic moment
s aligned parallel within magnetic domains.
In Np
Fe2 the easy axis is <111>. Above TC ~500 K NpFe2 is also paramagnetic and cubic. Cooling below the Curie temperature produces a rhombohedral distortion wherein the rhombohedral angle changes from 60° (cubic phase) to 60.53°. An alternate description of this distortion is to consider the length c along the unique trigonal axis (after the distortion has begun) and a as the distance in the plane perpendicular to c. In the cubic phase this reduces to
= 1.00. Below the Curie temperature
which is the largest strain in any actinide compound. NpNi2 undergoes a similar lattice distortion below TC = 32 K, with a strain of (43 ± 5) × 10−4. NpCo2 is a ferrimagnet below 15 K.
ic lithium-6 to less than 150 billionths of one Kelvin above absolute zero using infrared laser cooling
. This demonstration is the first time that ferromagnetism has been demonstrated in a gas.
shows that magnetism cannot occur in purely classical solids. Without quantum mechanics
, there would be no diamagnetism
, paramagnetism or ferromagnetism. The property of ferromagnetism is due to the direct influence of two effects from quantum mechanics: spin
and the Pauli exclusion principle
.
, combined with its electric charge
, results in a magnetic dipole
moment and creates a small magnetic field
. Although an electron can be visualized classically as a spinning ball of charge, spin is actually a quantum mechanical property with differences from the classical picture, such as the fact that it is quantized into discrete up/down states. The spin of the electrons in atoms is the main source of ferromagnetism, although there is also a contribution from the orbital
angular momentum
of the electron about the nucleus, whose classical analogue is a current loop
. When these tiny magnetic dipoles are aligned in the same direction, their individual magnetic fields add together to create a measurable macroscopic field.
However in materials with a filled electron shell
, the total dipole moment of the electrons is zero because the spins are in up/down pairs. Only atoms with partially filled shells (i.e., unpaired spins) can have a net magnetic moment, so ferromagnetism only occurs in materials with partially filled shells. Because of Hund's rules, the first few electrons in a shell tend to have the same spin, thereby increasing the total dipole moment.
These unpaired dipoles (often called simply "spins" even though they also generally include angular momentum) tend to align in parallel to an external magnetic field, an effect called paramagnetism. Ferromagnetism involves an additional phenomenon, however: the dipoles tend to align spontaneously, giving rise to a spontaneous magnetization
, even when there is no applied field.
, two nearby magnetic dipoles will tend to align in opposite directions, so their magnetic fields will oppose one another and cancel out. However, this effect is very weak, because the magnetic fields generated by individual spins are small and the resulting alignment is easily destroyed by thermal fluctuations
. A much stronger interaction between spins arises because the change in the direction of the spin leads to a change in electrostatic repulsion between neighboring electrons, due to a particular quantum mechanical
effect called the exchange interaction
. At short distances, the exchange interaction is much stronger than the dipole-dipole magnetic interaction. As a result, in a few materials, the ferromagnetic ones, nearby spins tend to align in the same direction.
The exchange interaction is related to the Pauli exclusion principle
, which says that two electrons with the same spin cannot also have the same "position". Therefore, under certain conditions, when the orbitals
of the unpaired outer valence electron
s from adjacent atoms overlap, the distributions of their electric charge in space are further apart when the electrons have parallel spins than when they have opposite spins. This reduces the electrostatic energy of the electrons when their spins are parallel compared to their energy when the spins are anti-parallel, so the parallel-spin state is more stable. In simple terms, the electrons, which repel one another, can move "further apart" by aligning their spins, so the spins of these electrons tend to line up. This difference in energy is called the exchange energy.
The materials in which the magnetic exchange is much stronger than the competing dipole-dipole interaction are frequently called magnetic materials. For instance, in iron (Fe) the exchange is about 1000 times stronger than the dipole interaction. Therefore below the Curie temperature virtually all of the dipoles in a ferromagnetic material will be aligned.
The exchange interaction
is also responsible for the other types of spontaneous ordering of atomic magnetic moments occurring in magnetic solids, antiferromagnetism
and ferrimagnetism.
Depending on the material's chemistry, different specific mechanisms of magnetic exchange become important. These mechanisms include direct exchange, RKKY exchange, double exchange, superexchange
, and so on, and may each favor both ferro- and antiferromagnetic alignment, depending on various factors.
, the spins in a magnet randomly change direction in response to thermal fluctuations
and the magnet is superparamagnetic. There are several kinds of magnetic anisotropy, the most common of which is magnetocrystalline anisotropy
. This is a dependence of the energy on the direction of magnetization relative to the crystallographic lattice. Another common source of anisotropy, inverse magnetostriction, is induced by internal strains
. Single-domain magnets also can have a shape anisotropy due to the magnetostatic effects of the particle shape. As the temperature of a magnet increases, the anisotropy tends to decrease, and there is often a blocking temperature at which a transition to superparamagnetism occurs.
(also known as Weiss domains). Within each domain, the spins are aligned, but (if the bulk material is in its lowest energy configuration, i.e.unmagnetized), the spins of separate domains point in different directions and their magnetic fields cancel out, so the object has no net large scale magnetic field.
Ferromagnetic materials spontaneously divide into magnetic domains because the exchange interaction
keeps nearby spins aligned with each other. This is a short-range force, so rotations can occur over hundreds of times the distance between atoms. To keep the magnetostatic energy low, this rotation is concentrated in the boundary between domains, or domain wall
. The direction that the magnetization rotates within a domain wall varies. In a Néel wall
, the magnetization direction stays in the plane of the wall; in a Bloch wall
, it rotates perpendicular to the plane.
Thus, an ordinary piece of iron generally has little or no net magnetic moment. However, if it is placed in a strong enough external magnetic field, the domains will re-orient in parallel with that field, and will remain re-oriented when the field is turned off, thus creating a "permanent" magnet. The domains do not go back to their original minimum energy configuration when the field is turned off because the domain walls tend to become 'pinned' or 'snagged' on defects in the crystal lattice, preserving their parallel orientation. This is shown by the Barkhausen effect
: as the magnetizing field is changed, the magnetization changes in thousands of tiny discontinuous jumps as the domain walls suddenly "snap" past defects.
This magnetization as a function of the external field is described by a hysteresis curve. Although this state of aligned domains is not a minimal-energy configuration, it is extremely stable and has been observed to persist for millions of years
in seafloor magnetite
aligned by the Earth's magnetic field
(whose poles can thereby be seen to flip at long intervals
).
Alloys used for the strongest permanent magnets are "hard" alloys made with many defects in their crystal structure where the domain walls "catch" and stabilize. The net magnetization can be destroyed by heating and then cooling (annealing
) the material without an external field, however. The thermal motion allows the domain boundaries to move, releasing them from any defects, to return to their low-energy unaligned state.
, competes with the ferromagnetic tendency for dipoles to align. When the temperature rises beyond a certain point, called the Curie temperature, there is a second-order phase transition
and the system can no longer maintain a spontaneous magnetization, although it still responds paramagnetically to an external field. Below that temperature, there is a spontaneous symmetry breaking
and random domains form (in the absence of an external field). The Curie temperature itself is a critical point
, where the magnetic susceptibility
is theoretically infinite and, although there is no net magnetization, domain-like spin correlations fluctuate at all length scales.
The study of ferromagnetic phase transitions, especially via the simplified Ising
spin model, had an important impact on the development of statistical physics. There, it was first clearly shown that mean field theory
approaches failed to predict the correct behavior at the critical point (which was found to fall under a universality class that includes many other systems, such as liquid-gas transitions), and had to be replaced by renormalization group
theory.
Iron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...
) form permanent magnets, or are attracted to magnet
Magnet
A magnet is a material or object that produces a magnetic field. This magnetic field is invisible but is responsible for the most notable property of a magnet: a force that pulls on other ferromagnetic materials, such as iron, and attracts or repels other magnets.A permanent magnet is an object...
s. In physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
, several different types of magnetism
Magnetism
Magnetism is a property of materials that respond at an atomic or subatomic level to an applied magnetic field. Ferromagnetism is the strongest and most familiar type of magnetism. It is responsible for the behavior of permanent magnets, which produce their own persistent magnetic fields, as well...
are distinguished. Ferromagnetism (including ferrimagnetism
Ferrimagnetism
In physics, a ferrimagnetic material is one in which the magnetic moments of the atoms on different sublattices are opposed, as in antiferromagnetism; however, in ferrimagnetic materials, the opposing moments are unequal and a spontaneous magnetization remains...
) is the strongest type; it is the only type that creates forces strong enough to be felt, and is responsible for the common phenomena of magnetism encountered in everyday life. Other substances respond weakly to magnetic fields with two other types of magnetism, paramagnetism
Paramagnetism
Paramagnetism is a form of magnetism whereby the paramagnetic material is only attracted when in the presence of an externally applied magnetic field. In contrast with this, diamagnetic materials are repulsive when placed in a magnetic field...
and diamagnetism
Diamagnetism
Diamagnetism is the property of an object which causes it to create a magnetic field in opposition to an externally applied magnetic field, thus causing a repulsive effect. Specifically, an external magnetic field alters the orbital velocity of electrons around their nuclei, thus changing the...
, but the forces are so weak that they can only be detected by sensitive instruments in a laboratory. An everyday example of ferromagnetism is a refrigerator magnet
Refrigerator magnet
A refrigerator magnet is an ornament, often whimsical, attached to a small magnet which is used to post items such as shopping lists or report cards on a refrigerator door, or which simply serves as decoration. Refrigerator magnets come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, including but not...
used to hold notes on a refrigerator door. The attraction between a magnet and ferromagnetic material is "the quality of magnetism first apparent to the ancient world, and to us today".
Permanent magnets (materials that can be magnetized
Magnetization
In classical electromagnetism, magnetization or magnetic polarization is the vector field that expresses the density of permanent or induced magnetic dipole moments in a magnetic material...
by an external magnetic field
Magnetic field
A magnetic field is a mathematical description of the magnetic influence of electric currents and magnetic materials. The magnetic field at any given point is specified by both a direction and a magnitude ; as such it is a vector field.Technically, a magnetic field is a pseudo vector;...
and remain magnetized after the external field is removed) are either ferromagnetic or ferrimagnetic, as are other materials that are noticeably attracted to them. Only a few substances are ferromagnetic; the common ones are iron
Iron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...
, nickel
Nickel
Nickel is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel belongs to the transition metals and is hard and ductile...
, cobalt
Cobalt
Cobalt is a chemical element with symbol Co and atomic number 27. It is found naturally only in chemically combined form. The free element, produced by reductive smelting, is a hard, lustrous, silver-gray metal....
and their alloys, some compounds of rare earth metals, and a few naturally-occurring minerals such as lodestone
Lodestone
A lodestone or loadstone is a naturally magnetized piece of the mineral magnetite. They are naturally occurring magnets, that attract pieces of iron. Ancient people first discovered the property of magnetism in lodestone...
.
History and distinction from ferrimagnetism
Historically, the term ferromagnet was used for any material that could exhibit spontaneous magnetization: a net magnetic moment in the absence of an external magnetic field. This general definition is still in common use. More recently, however, different classes of spontaneous magnetization have been identified when there is more than one magnetic ion per primitive cellPrimitive cell
Used predominantly in geometry, solid state physics, and mineralogy, particularly in describing crystal structure, a primitive cell is a minimum cell corresponding to a single lattice point of a structure with translational symmetry in 2 dimensions, 3 dimensions, or other dimensions...
of the material, leading to a stricter definition of "ferromagnetism" that is often used to distinguish it from ferrimagnetism. In particular, a material is "ferromagnetic" in this narrower sense only if all of its magnetic ions add a positive contribution to the net magnetization. If some of the magnetic ions subtract from the net magnetization (if they are partially anti-aligned), then the material is "ferrimagnetic".If the moments of the aligned and anti-aligned ions balance completely so as to have zero net magnetization, despite the magnetic ordering, then it is an antiferromagnet. These alignment effects only occur at temperature
Temperature
Temperature is a physical property of matter that quantitatively expresses the common notions of hot and cold. Objects of low temperature are cold, while various degrees of higher temperatures are referred to as warm or hot...
s below a certain critical temperature, called the Curie temperature (for ferromagnets and ferrimagnets) or the Néel temperature
Néel temperature
The Néel temperature or magnetic ordering temperature , TN, is the temperature above which an antiferromagnetic material becomes paramagnetic—that is, the thermal energy becomes large enough to destroy the macroscopic magnetic ordering within the material....
(for antiferromagnets).
Among the first investigations of ferromagnetism are the pioneering works of Aleksandr Stoletov
Aleksandr Stoletov
Aleksandr Grigorievich Stoletov was a Russian physicist, founder of electrical engineering, and professor in Moscow University. He was the brother of general Nikolai Stoletov.-Biography:...
on measurement of the magnetic permeability of ferromagnetics, known as the Stoletov curve
Stoletov curve
Stoletov curve shows the dependence of the magnetic permeability \chi of ferromagnetics on the intensity of the applied magnetic field H. The curve is named after physicist Aleksandr Stoletov who analyzed in a long series of experiments the magnetic properties of iron rings in the period 1871–1872...
.
Ferromagnetic materials
| Material | Curie temp. (K) |
|---|---|
| Co Cobalt Cobalt is a chemical element with symbol Co and atomic number 27. It is found naturally only in chemically combined form. The free element, produced by reductive smelting, is a hard, lustrous, silver-gray metal.... |
1388 |
| Fe Iron Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust... |
1043 |
| Fe2O3 Hematite Hematite, also spelled as haematite, is the mineral form of iron oxide , one of several iron oxides. Hematite crystallizes in the rhombohedral system, and it has the same crystal structure as ilmenite and corundum... * |
948 |
| FeOFe2O3 Magnetite Magnetite is a ferrimagnetic mineral with chemical formula Fe3O4, one of several iron oxides and a member of the spinel group. The chemical IUPAC name is iron oxide and the common chemical name is ferrous-ferric oxide. The formula for magnetite may also be written as FeO·Fe2O3, which is one part... * |
858 |
| NiOFe2O3 Ferrite (magnet) Ferrites are chemical compounds consisting of ceramic materials with iron oxide as their principal component. Many of them are magnetic materials and they are used to make permanent magnets, ferrite cores for transformers, and in various other applications.Many ferrites are spinels with the... * |
858 |
| CuOFe2O3* | 728 |
| MgOFe2O3* | 713 |
| Mn Manganese Manganese is a chemical element, designated by the symbol Mn. It has the atomic number 25. It is found as a free element in nature , and in many minerals... Bi Bismuth Bismuth is a chemical element with symbol Bi and atomic number 83. Bismuth, a trivalent poor metal, chemically resembles arsenic and antimony. Elemental bismuth may occur naturally uncombined, although its sulfide and oxide form important commercial ores. The free element is 86% as dense as lead... |
630 |
| Ni Nickel Nickel is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel belongs to the transition metals and is hard and ductile... |
627 |
| MnSb Antimony Antimony is a toxic chemical element with the symbol Sb and an atomic number of 51. A lustrous grey metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite... |
587 |
| MnOFe2O3* | 573 |
| Y3Fe5O12 Yttrium iron garnet Yttrium iron garnet is a kind of synthetic garnet, with chemical composition 323, or Y3Fe5O12. It is a ferrimagnetic material with a Curie temperature of 550 K.... * |
560 |
| CrO2 Chromium(IV) oxide Chromium dioxide or chromium oxide is a synthetic magnetic substance once widely used in magnetic tape emulsion. With the increasing popularity of CDs and DVDs, the use of chromium oxide has declined. However, it is still used in data tape applications for enterprise-class storage systems... |
386 |
| MnAs Arsenic Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As, atomic number 33 and relative atomic mass 74.92. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in conjunction with sulfur and metals, and also as a pure elemental crystal. It was first documented by Albertus Magnus in 1250.Arsenic is a metalloid... |
318 |
| Gd Gadolinium Gadolinium is a chemical element with the symbol Gd and atomic number 64. It is a silvery-white, malleable and ductile rare-earth metal. It is found in nature only in combined form. Gadolinium was first detected spectroscopically in 1880 by de Marignac who separated its oxide and is credited with... |
292 |
| Dy Dysprosium Dysprosium is a chemical element with the symbol Dy and atomic number 66. It is a rare earth element with a metallic silver luster. Dysprosium is never found in nature as a free element, though it is found in various minerals, such as xenotime... |
88 |
| Eu Europium Europium is a chemical element with the symbol Eu and atomic number 63. It is named after the continent of Europe. It is a moderately hard silvery metal which readily oxidizes in air and water... O |
69 |
The table on the right lists a selection of ferromagnetic and ferrimagnetic compounds, along with the temperature above which they cease to exhibit spontaneous magnetization (see Curie temperature).
Ferromagnetism is a property not just of the chemical make-up of a material, but of its crystalline structure and microscopic organization. There are ferromagnetic metal alloys whose constituents are not themselves ferromagnetic, called Heusler alloy
Heusler alloy
A Heusler alloy is a ferromagnetic metal alloy based on a Heusler phase. Heusler phases are intermetallics with particular composition and face-centered cubic crystal structure. They are ferromagnetic—even though the constituting elements are not—as a result of the double-exchange mechanism between...
s, named after Fritz Heusler. Conversely there are non-magnetic alloys, such as types of stainless steel
Stainless steel
In metallurgy, stainless steel, also known as inox steel or inox from French "inoxydable", is defined as a steel alloy with a minimum of 10.5 or 11% chromium content by mass....
, composed almost exclusively of ferromagnetic metals.
One can also make amorphous (non-crystalline) ferromagnetic metallic alloys by very rapid quenching (cooling) of a liquid alloy. These have the advantage that their properties are nearly isotropic (not aligned along a crystal axis); this results in low coercivity, low hysteresis
Hysteresis
Hysteresis is the dependence of a system not just on its current environment but also on its past. This dependence arises because the system can be in more than one internal state. To predict its future evolution, either its internal state or its history must be known. If a given input alternately...
loss, high permeability, and high electrical resistivity. A typical such material is a transition metal-metalloid alloy, made from about 80% transition metal (usually Fe, Co, or Ni) and a metalloid component (B
Boron
Boron is the chemical element with atomic number 5 and the chemical symbol B. Boron is a metalloid. Because boron is not produced by stellar nucleosynthesis, it is a low-abundance element in both the solar system and the Earth's crust. However, boron is concentrated on Earth by the...
, C
Carbon
Carbon is the chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is nonmetallic and tetravalent—making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds...
, Si
Silicon
Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. A tetravalent metalloid, it is less reactive than its chemical analog carbon, the nonmetal directly above it in the periodic table, but more reactive than germanium, the metalloid directly below it in the table...
, P
Phosphorus
Phosphorus is the chemical element that has the symbol P and atomic number 15. A multivalent nonmetal of the nitrogen group, phosphorus as a mineral is almost always present in its maximally oxidized state, as inorganic phosphate rocks...
, or Al
Aluminium
Aluminium or aluminum is a silvery white member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al, and its atomic number is 13. It is not soluble in water under normal circumstances....
) that lowers the melting point.
A relatively new class of exceptionally strong ferromagnetic materials are the rare-earth magnet
Rare-earth magnet
Rare-earth magnets are strong permanent magnets made from alloys of rare earth elements. Developed in the 1970s and 80s, rare-earth magnets are the strongest type of permanent magnets made and have significant performance advantages over ferrite or alnico magnets...
s. They contain lanthanide elements that are known for their ability to carry large magnetic moments in well-localized f-orbitals.
Actinide ferromagnets
A number of actinideActinide
The actinide or actinoid series encompasses the 15 metallic chemical elements with atomic numbers from 89 to 103, actinium through lawrencium.The actinide series derives its name from the group 3 element actinium...
compounds are ferromagnets at room temperature or become ferromagnets below the Curie temperature (TC). Pu
Plutonium
Plutonium is a transuranic radioactive chemical element with the chemical symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, forming a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibits six allotropes and four oxidation...
P
Phosphorus
Phosphorus is the chemical element that has the symbol P and atomic number 15. A multivalent nonmetal of the nitrogen group, phosphorus as a mineral is almost always present in its maximally oxidized state, as inorganic phosphate rocks...
is one actinide pnictide that is a paramagnet and has cubic symmetry
Cubic crystal system
In crystallography, the cubic crystal system is a crystal system where the unit cell is in the shape of a cube. This is one of the most common and simplest shapes found in crystals and minerals....
at room temperature, but upon cooling undergoes a lattice distortion to tetragonal
Tetragonal crystal system
In crystallography, the tetragonal crystal system is one of the 7 lattice point groups. Tetragonal crystal lattices result from stretching a cubic lattice along one of its lattice vectors, so that the cube becomes a rectangular prism with a square base and height .There are two tetragonal Bravais...
when cooled to below its Tc = 125 K. PuP has an easy axis of <100>, so that
at 5 K. The lattice distortion is presumably a consequence of strain induced by the magnetoelastic interactions as the magnetic moment
Magnetic moment
The magnetic moment of a magnet is a quantity that determines the force that the magnet can exert on electric currents and the torque that a magnetic field will exert on it...
s aligned parallel within magnetic domains.
In Np
Neptunium
Neptunium is a chemical element with the symbol Np and atomic number 93. A radioactive metal, neptunium is the first transuranic element and belongs to the actinide series. Its most stable isotope, 237Np, is a by-product of nuclear reactors and plutonium production and it can be used as a...
Fe2 the easy axis is <111>. Above TC ~500 K NpFe2 is also paramagnetic and cubic. Cooling below the Curie temperature produces a rhombohedral distortion wherein the rhombohedral angle changes from 60° (cubic phase) to 60.53°. An alternate description of this distortion is to consider the length c along the unique trigonal axis (after the distortion has begun) and a as the distance in the plane perpendicular to c. In the cubic phase this reduces to
= 1.00. Below the Curie temperaturewhich is the largest strain in any actinide compound. NpNi2 undergoes a similar lattice distortion below TC = 32 K, with a strain of (43 ± 5) × 10−4. NpCo2 is a ferrimagnet below 15 K.
Lithium gas
In 2009, a team of MIT physicists demonstrated that a lithium gas cooled to less than one Kelvin can exhibit ferromagnetism. The team cooled fermionFermion
In particle physics, a fermion is any particle which obeys the Fermi–Dirac statistics . Fermions contrast with bosons which obey Bose–Einstein statistics....
ic lithium-6 to less than 150 billionths of one Kelvin above absolute zero using infrared laser cooling
Laser cooling
Laser cooling refers to the number of techniques in which atomic and molecular samples are cooled through the interaction with one or more laser light fields...
. This demonstration is the first time that ferromagnetism has been demonstrated in a gas.
Explanation
The Bohr–van Leeuwen theoremBohr–van Leeuwen theorem
The Bohr–van Leeuwen theorem is a theorem in the field of statistical mechanics. The theorem shows that when statistical mechanics and classical mechanics are applied consistently, the thermal average of the magnetization is always zero...
shows that magnetism cannot occur in purely classical solids. Without quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics, also known as quantum physics or quantum theory, is a branch of physics providing a mathematical description of much of the dual particle-like and wave-like behavior and interactions of energy and matter. It departs from classical mechanics primarily at the atomic and subatomic...
, there would be no diamagnetism
Diamagnetism
Diamagnetism is the property of an object which causes it to create a magnetic field in opposition to an externally applied magnetic field, thus causing a repulsive effect. Specifically, an external magnetic field alters the orbital velocity of electrons around their nuclei, thus changing the...
, paramagnetism or ferromagnetism. The property of ferromagnetism is due to the direct influence of two effects from quantum mechanics: spin
Spin (physics)
In quantum mechanics and particle physics, spin is a fundamental characteristic property of elementary particles, composite particles , and atomic nuclei.It is worth noting that the intrinsic property of subatomic particles called spin and discussed in this article, is related in some small ways,...
and the Pauli exclusion principle
Pauli exclusion principle
The Pauli exclusion principle is the quantum mechanical principle that no two identical fermions may occupy the same quantum state simultaneously. A more rigorous statement is that the total wave function for two identical fermions is anti-symmetric with respect to exchange of the particles...
.
Origin of magnetism
The spin of an electronElectron
The electron is a subatomic particle with a negative elementary electric charge. It has no known components or substructure; in other words, it is generally thought to be an elementary particle. An electron has a mass that is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton...
, combined with its electric charge
Electric charge
Electric charge is a physical property of matter that causes it to experience a force when near other electrically charged matter. Electric charge comes in two types, called positive and negative. Two positively charged substances, or objects, experience a mutual repulsive force, as do two...
, results in a magnetic dipole
Electron magnetic dipole moment
In atomic physics, the electron magnetic dipole moment is the magnetic moment of an electron caused by its intrinsic property of spin.-Magnetic moment of an electron:...
moment and creates a small magnetic field
Magnetic field
A magnetic field is a mathematical description of the magnetic influence of electric currents and magnetic materials. The magnetic field at any given point is specified by both a direction and a magnitude ; as such it is a vector field.Technically, a magnetic field is a pseudo vector;...
. Although an electron can be visualized classically as a spinning ball of charge, spin is actually a quantum mechanical property with differences from the classical picture, such as the fact that it is quantized into discrete up/down states. The spin of the electrons in atoms is the main source of ferromagnetism, although there is also a contribution from the orbital
Planetary orbit
In physics, an orbit is the gravitationally curved path of an object around a point in space, for example the orbit of a planet around the center of a star system, such as the Solar System...
angular momentum
Angular momentum
In physics, angular momentum, moment of momentum, or rotational momentum is a conserved vector quantity that can be used to describe the overall state of a physical system...
of the electron about the nucleus, whose classical analogue is a current loop
Current loop
A current loop describes two different electrical signalling schemes.- Digital :For digital serial communications, a current loop is a communication interface that uses current instead of voltage for signaling...
. When these tiny magnetic dipoles are aligned in the same direction, their individual magnetic fields add together to create a measurable macroscopic field.
However in materials with a filled electron shell
Electron shell
An electron shell may be thought of as an orbit followed by electrons around an atom's nucleus. The closest shell to the nucleus is called the "1 shell" , followed by the "2 shell" , then the "3 shell" , and so on further and further from the nucleus. The shell letters K,L,M,.....
, the total dipole moment of the electrons is zero because the spins are in up/down pairs. Only atoms with partially filled shells (i.e., unpaired spins) can have a net magnetic moment, so ferromagnetism only occurs in materials with partially filled shells. Because of Hund's rules, the first few electrons in a shell tend to have the same spin, thereby increasing the total dipole moment.
These unpaired dipoles (often called simply "spins" even though they also generally include angular momentum) tend to align in parallel to an external magnetic field, an effect called paramagnetism. Ferromagnetism involves an additional phenomenon, however: the dipoles tend to align spontaneously, giving rise to a spontaneous magnetization
Spontaneous magnetization
Spontaneous magnetization is the term used to describe the appearance of an ordered spin state at zero applied magnetic field in a ferromagnetic or ferrimagnetic material below a critical point called the Curie temperature or .-Overview:...
, even when there is no applied field.
Exchange interaction
According to classical electromagnetismElectromagnetism
Electromagnetism is one of the four fundamental interactions in nature. The other three are the strong interaction, the weak interaction and gravitation...
, two nearby magnetic dipoles will tend to align in opposite directions, so their magnetic fields will oppose one another and cancel out. However, this effect is very weak, because the magnetic fields generated by individual spins are small and the resulting alignment is easily destroyed by thermal fluctuations
Thermal fluctuations
In statistical mechanics, thermal fluctuations are random deviations of a system from its equilibrium. All thermal fluctuations become larger and more frequent as the temperature increases, and likewise they disappear altogether as temperature approaches absolute zero.Thermal fluctuations are a...
. A much stronger interaction between spins arises because the change in the direction of the spin leads to a change in electrostatic repulsion between neighboring electrons, due to a particular quantum mechanical
Quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics, also known as quantum physics or quantum theory, is a branch of physics providing a mathematical description of much of the dual particle-like and wave-like behavior and interactions of energy and matter. It departs from classical mechanics primarily at the atomic and subatomic...
effect called the exchange interaction
Exchange interaction
In physics, the exchange interaction is a quantum mechanical effect without classical analog which increases or decreases the expectation value of the energy or distance between two or more identical particles when their wave functions overlap...
. At short distances, the exchange interaction is much stronger than the dipole-dipole magnetic interaction. As a result, in a few materials, the ferromagnetic ones, nearby spins tend to align in the same direction.
The exchange interaction is related to the Pauli exclusion principle
Pauli exclusion principle
The Pauli exclusion principle is the quantum mechanical principle that no two identical fermions may occupy the same quantum state simultaneously. A more rigorous statement is that the total wave function for two identical fermions is anti-symmetric with respect to exchange of the particles...
, which says that two electrons with the same spin cannot also have the same "position". Therefore, under certain conditions, when the orbitals
Atomic orbital
An atomic orbital is a mathematical function that describes the wave-like behavior of either one electron or a pair of electrons in an atom. This function can be used to calculate the probability of finding any electron of an atom in any specific region around the atom's nucleus...
of the unpaired outer valence electron
Valence electron
In chemistry, valence electrons are the electrons of an atom that can participate in the formation of chemical bonds with other atoms. Valence electrons are the "own" electrons, present in the free neutral atom, that combine with valence electrons of other atoms to form chemical bonds. In a single...
s from adjacent atoms overlap, the distributions of their electric charge in space are further apart when the electrons have parallel spins than when they have opposite spins. This reduces the electrostatic energy of the electrons when their spins are parallel compared to their energy when the spins are anti-parallel, so the parallel-spin state is more stable. In simple terms, the electrons, which repel one another, can move "further apart" by aligning their spins, so the spins of these electrons tend to line up. This difference in energy is called the exchange energy.
The materials in which the magnetic exchange is much stronger than the competing dipole-dipole interaction are frequently called magnetic materials. For instance, in iron (Fe) the exchange is about 1000 times stronger than the dipole interaction. Therefore below the Curie temperature virtually all of the dipoles in a ferromagnetic material will be aligned.
The exchange interaction
Exchange interaction
In physics, the exchange interaction is a quantum mechanical effect without classical analog which increases or decreases the expectation value of the energy or distance between two or more identical particles when their wave functions overlap...
is also responsible for the other types of spontaneous ordering of atomic magnetic moments occurring in magnetic solids, antiferromagnetism
Antiferromagnetism
In materials that exhibit antiferromagnetism, the magnetic moments of atoms or molecules, usuallyrelated to the spins of electrons, align in a regular pattern with neighboring spins pointing in opposite directions. This is, like ferromagnetism and ferrimagnetism, a manifestation of ordered magnetism...
and ferrimagnetism.
Depending on the material's chemistry, different specific mechanisms of magnetic exchange become important. These mechanisms include direct exchange, RKKY exchange, double exchange, superexchange
Superexchange
Superexchange is the strong antiferromagnetic coupling between two next-to-nearest neighbor cations through a non-magnetic anion. In this way, it differs from direct exchange in which there is coupling between nearest neighbor cations not involving an intermediary anion...
, and so on, and may each favor both ferro- and antiferromagnetic alignment, depending on various factors.
Magnetic anisotropy
Although the exchange interaction keeps spins aligned, it does not align them in a particular direction. Without magnetic anisotropyMagnetic anisotropy
Magnetic anisotropy is the direction dependence of a material's magnetic properties. In the absence of an applied magnetic field, a magnetically isotropic material has no preferential direction for its magnetic moment while a magnetically anisotropic material will align its moment with one of the...
, the spins in a magnet randomly change direction in response to thermal fluctuations
Thermal fluctuations
In statistical mechanics, thermal fluctuations are random deviations of a system from its equilibrium. All thermal fluctuations become larger and more frequent as the temperature increases, and likewise they disappear altogether as temperature approaches absolute zero.Thermal fluctuations are a...
and the magnet is superparamagnetic. There are several kinds of magnetic anisotropy, the most common of which is magnetocrystalline anisotropy
Magnetocrystalline anisotropy
Magnetocrystalline anisotropy is the dependence of the internal energy of a ferromagnet on the direction of its magnetization. As a result, certain crystallographic directions are preferred directions, or easy axes, for the magnetization. It is a special case of magnetic anisotropy...
. This is a dependence of the energy on the direction of magnetization relative to the crystallographic lattice. Another common source of anisotropy, inverse magnetostriction, is induced by internal strains
Deformation (mechanics)
Deformation in continuum mechanics is the transformation of a body from a reference configuration to a current configuration. A configuration is a set containing the positions of all particles of the body...
. Single-domain magnets also can have a shape anisotropy due to the magnetostatic effects of the particle shape. As the temperature of a magnet increases, the anisotropy tends to decrease, and there is often a blocking temperature at which a transition to superparamagnetism occurs.
Magnetic domains
The above would seem to suggest that every piece of ferromagnetic material should have a strong magnetic field, since all the spins are aligned, yet iron and other ferromagnets are often found in an "unmagnetized" state. The reason for this is that a bulk piece of ferromagnetic material is divided into tiny magnetic domainsMagnetic domains
A magnetic domain describes a region within a magnetic material which has uniform magnetization. This means that the individual magnetic moments of the atoms are aligned with one another and they point in the same direction...
(also known as Weiss domains). Within each domain, the spins are aligned, but (if the bulk material is in its lowest energy configuration, i.e.unmagnetized), the spins of separate domains point in different directions and their magnetic fields cancel out, so the object has no net large scale magnetic field.
Ferromagnetic materials spontaneously divide into magnetic domains because the exchange interaction
Exchange interaction
In physics, the exchange interaction is a quantum mechanical effect without classical analog which increases or decreases the expectation value of the energy or distance between two or more identical particles when their wave functions overlap...
keeps nearby spins aligned with each other. This is a short-range force, so rotations can occur over hundreds of times the distance between atoms. To keep the magnetostatic energy low, this rotation is concentrated in the boundary between domains, or domain wall
Domain wall
A domain wall is a term used in physics which can have one of two distinct but similar meanings in magnetism, optics, or string theory. These phenomena can all be generically described as topological solitons which occur whenever a discrete symmetry is spontaneously broken.-Magnetism:In magnetism,...
. The direction that the magnetization rotates within a domain wall varies. In a Néel wall
Néel wall
A Néel wall is a narrow transition region between magnetic domains. In the Neel wall, the magnetisation rotates from the direction of the first domain to the direction of the second, with a rotation axis that is parallel to the wall plane. It consists of a core with fast varying rotation and two...
, the magnetization direction stays in the plane of the wall; in a Bloch wall
Bloch wall
A Bloch wall is a narrow transition region at the boundary between magnetic domains, over which the magnetization changes from its value in one domain to that in the next. The magnetization rotates along an axis that is perpendicular to the plane of the wall unlike the Néel wall where the...
, it rotates perpendicular to the plane.
Thus, an ordinary piece of iron generally has little or no net magnetic moment. However, if it is placed in a strong enough external magnetic field, the domains will re-orient in parallel with that field, and will remain re-oriented when the field is turned off, thus creating a "permanent" magnet. The domains do not go back to their original minimum energy configuration when the field is turned off because the domain walls tend to become 'pinned' or 'snagged' on defects in the crystal lattice, preserving their parallel orientation. This is shown by the Barkhausen effect
Barkhausen effect
The Barkhausen effect is a name given to the noise in the magnetic output of a ferromagnet when the magnetizing force applied to it is changed...
: as the magnetizing field is changed, the magnetization changes in thousands of tiny discontinuous jumps as the domain walls suddenly "snap" past defects.
This magnetization as a function of the external field is described by a hysteresis curve. Although this state of aligned domains is not a minimal-energy configuration, it is extremely stable and has been observed to persist for millions of years
Paleomagnetism
Paleomagnetism is the study of the record of the Earth's magnetic field in rocks. Certain minerals in rocks lock-in a record of the direction and intensity of the magnetic field when they form. This record provides information on the past behavior of Earth's magnetic field and the past location of...
in seafloor magnetite
Magnetite
Magnetite is a ferrimagnetic mineral with chemical formula Fe3O4, one of several iron oxides and a member of the spinel group. The chemical IUPAC name is iron oxide and the common chemical name is ferrous-ferric oxide. The formula for magnetite may also be written as FeO·Fe2O3, which is one part...
aligned by the Earth's magnetic field
Earth's magnetic field
Earth's magnetic field is the magnetic field that extends from the Earth's inner core to where it meets the solar wind, a stream of energetic particles emanating from the Sun...
(whose poles can thereby be seen to flip at long intervals
Geomagnetic reversal
A geomagnetic reversal is a change in the Earth's magnetic field such that the positions of magnetic north and magnetic south are interchanged. The Earth's field has alternated between periods of normal polarity, in which the direction of the field was the same as the present direction, and reverse...
).
Alloys used for the strongest permanent magnets are "hard" alloys made with many defects in their crystal structure where the domain walls "catch" and stabilize. The net magnetization can be destroyed by heating and then cooling (annealing
Annealing (metallurgy)
Annealing, in metallurgy and materials science, is a heat treatment wherein a material is altered, causing changes in its properties such as strength and hardness. It is a process that produces conditions by heating to above the recrystallization temperature, maintaining a suitable temperature, and...
) the material without an external field, however. The thermal motion allows the domain boundaries to move, releasing them from any defects, to return to their low-energy unaligned state.
Curie temperature
As the temperature increases, thermal motion, or entropyEntropy
Entropy is a thermodynamic property that can be used to determine the energy available for useful work in a thermodynamic process, such as in energy conversion devices, engines, or machines. Such devices can only be driven by convertible energy, and have a theoretical maximum efficiency when...
, competes with the ferromagnetic tendency for dipoles to align. When the temperature rises beyond a certain point, called the Curie temperature, there is a second-order phase transition
Phase transition
A phase transition is the transformation of a thermodynamic system from one phase or state of matter to another.A phase of a thermodynamic system and the states of matter have uniform physical properties....
and the system can no longer maintain a spontaneous magnetization, although it still responds paramagnetically to an external field. Below that temperature, there is a spontaneous symmetry breaking
Spontaneous symmetry breaking
Spontaneous symmetry breaking is the process by which a system described in a theoretically symmetrical way ends up in an apparently asymmetric state....
and random domains form (in the absence of an external field). The Curie temperature itself is a critical point
Critical point (thermodynamics)
In physical chemistry, thermodynamics, chemistry and condensed matter physics, a critical point, also called a critical state, specifies the conditions at which a phase boundary ceases to exist...
, where the magnetic susceptibility
Magnetic susceptibility
In electromagnetism, the magnetic susceptibility \chi_m is a dimensionless proportionality constant that indicates the degree of magnetization of a material in response to an applied magnetic field...
is theoretically infinite and, although there is no net magnetization, domain-like spin correlations fluctuate at all length scales.
The study of ferromagnetic phase transitions, especially via the simplified Ising
Ising model
The Ising model is a mathematical model of ferromagnetism in statistical mechanics. The model consists of discrete variables called spins that can be in one of two states . The spins are arranged in a graph , and each spin interacts with its nearest neighbors...
spin model, had an important impact on the development of statistical physics. There, it was first clearly shown that mean field theory
Mean field theory
Mean field theory is a method to analyse physical systems with multiple bodies. A many-body system with interactions is generally very difficult to solve exactly, except for extremely simple cases . The n-body system is replaced by a 1-body problem with a chosen good external field...
approaches failed to predict the correct behavior at the critical point (which was found to fall under a universality class that includes many other systems, such as liquid-gas transitions), and had to be replaced by renormalization group
Renormalization group
In theoretical physics, the renormalization group refers to a mathematical apparatus that allows systematic investigation of the changes of a physical system as viewed at different distance scales...
theory.
External links
- Electromagnetism - a chapter from an online textbook Detailed nonmathematical description of ferromagnetic materials with animated illustrations