History of Magnetism
History of Magnetism
History of Magnetism
History of Magnetism
The term magnetism comes from a rock called lodestone. The ancient Greeks and the Chinese
know about this strange and rare stone with the power to attract iron [1]. This natural form of
magnet was then named as lodestone. The name magnet was used by the Greeks for this
lodestone, because of its property of attracting other pieces of the same material and iron as
well. It was proved later that this naturally occurring lodestone is the magnetic iron oxide or
the naturally occurring mineral called magnetite [2]. The Chinese found that when a steel
needle stroked with such a lodestone became magnetic and the needle pointed north - south
when it is suspended freely. They applied this characteristic feature of the lodestone for
navigation, fortune telling and as a guide for building. Some of the properties of magnets
were discovered earlier than 600 B. C, although it is only in the twentieth century that
physicists have begun to understand why substances behave magnetically. Thus magnetism
is one of the earliest known physical phenomena of solid materials [3, 4].
In 1263 Pierre de Maricourt a French soldier mapped the magnetic field of a lodestone with
a compass. He discovered that a magnet had two magnetic poles north and south poles. The
magnetic compass was first used for navigation in the west sometime after AD 1200. In the
13th century important investigations on magnets were made by the French scholar Petrus
Peregrinus. His discoveries stood for nearly 300 years until the English physicist and
physician to Queen Elizabeth 1 of England, William Gilbert published his book on Magmas,
Magnetic bodies and the Great Magnet of the Earth, in 1600. William Gilbert was the first to
apply scientific methods to a systematic exploration of magnetic phenomena. His greatest
contribution was the discovery that the earth itself behaves like a giant magnet [5-7]. He
began in the early eighteenth century. In 1750, the English geologist John Michel (1724 -
1793) invented a balance that he used in the study of magnetic forces. He showed that
attraction and repulsion of magnets decreases as the square of the distance from the poles
increases. The French physicists Charles Augustine de Coulomb (1736 - 1806) had measured
the forces between electric charges and established the inverse square law of force between
magnetic poles and also between electric charges. Thus, he verified John Michel's observation
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries the theories of electricity and magnetism were
physicist Hans Christian Oersted, who found that a magnetic needle could be deflected by an
electric current flowing through a wire [10]. This discovery, which showed a connection
between electricity and magnetism, was followed up by the French scientist Andre Marie
Ampere, who studied the forces between wires carrying electric currents and worked out the
mathematical relationship between the current of electricity and the strength of the magnetic
field. He also had a theory that the electric current in atoms had a magnetic field. In 1831 the
English scientist Michel Faraday discovered that moving a magnet near a wire would induce
an electric current in that wire and the inverse effect of that was found by Oersted [11, 12].
Eventually simple devices based on magnetic materials started rolling out. They slowly
percolated in to every sphere of human life. They came into being as passive energy devices
such as transformers and electric motors.
matter. Pierre Curie discovered that magnets lose their magnetism above certain
temperature which became known as the Curie point [13]. In the 1900's, Edward M.
Purcell and Flix Bloch both American physicists developed a way to measure the
magnetic field of the nuclei. This discovery led to Magnetic Resonance Imaging
(MRI). In 1905, the French physicists Paul Langevin (1872- 1946) produced a theory
which was based on the atomic structure of matter [14]. This theory is an early
electrons and atoms. Langevin's theory was subsequently expanded by the French
internal, molecular magnetic field in materials such as iron. This concept, when
After Weiss theory, magnetic properties were explored in greater detail by Danish
physicist Niel's Bohr. His theory of atomic structure, for example, provided an
understanding of the periodic table and showed quantitatively why magnetism occurs
in the so called transition elements, such as iron and the rare earths or in compounds
electron itself has a spin and behaves like a small bar magnet [17]. At the atomic
explanation for Weiss's molecular field in 1927, on the basis of the newly developed
magnets. Only when the magne is cooled to absolute zero these magnets can
I = H, …..1.1
the same direction, i. e, ‘’ is scalar. For anisotropic materials, I and H are not
necessarily in the same direction, and ‘’ is a tensor [20]. The magnetic induction B
defined as
B = H + 4I = µH …..1.2
Where, µ is called the permeability of the material [21]. It can be seen that
µ= 1 + 4 …1.3
The magnetization arises from the spin and the orbital motion of the electrons in the
material. The orbital motion of an electron about the nucleus gives rise to a magnetic
[22],
µL = - ML …1.4
Both vectors are perpendicular to the plane of the orbit. The spin magnetic moment
µS is given by [23].
µS = . 2. MS …1.5
In general, an atom would have a number of electrons and its total angular momentum
arises from a combination of the individual orbital and spin angular momentum. The
relationship[24].
µ= . g Mj …1.6
where,
g = 1+
The factor g is called the Lande g factor [25] and its value is l when s = 0 and 2
when L = 0. The magnitude or Mj is √j(j+1)ħ and its possible orientations are
such that the components in an arbitrary direction (called z direction are mjħ, where
mj= J, J-1, …………….-J).
where, µB=
Magnetism
Magnetic phenomena have been known and exploited for many centuries. The earliest
experiences with the magnetism involved Magnetite, the only material that occurs naturally
in a magnetic state. This mineral was also known as Lodestone, after its property of aligning
itself in certain directions if allowed to rotate freely, thus being able to indicate the positions
of North and South, and to some extent also latitude. The other well known property of
Lodestone is that two pieces of it can attract or even repel each other [27].
After the production of iron from its ores had become possible, it was realized that magnetite
could also attract iron. There are many magnetic materials known today, and it is therefore
useful first of all to give a very important rule for what is called magnetic material.
If two objects attract each other and also repel each other (depending on their relative
orientations) then those objects might be called magnets. There are also other objects that
are attracted to, but not repelled by magnets, and are not attracted or repelled by each other.
associated with individual electrons. Each electron in an atom has magnetic moments that
originate from two sources. One is related to its orbital motion around the nucleus; being a
of rotation. Each electron may also be thought of as spinning around an axis the other
magnetic moment originates from this electron spin, which is directed around the spin axis.
Spin magnetic moments may be only in an “up” direction or in antiparallel “down” direction.
Thus each electron in an atom can be thought of as being a small permanent magnet having
orbital spin magnetic moments in each individual atom, orbital moments of some electron
pairs cancel each other; this also holds for spin moments. For example, the spin moment of
one electron with spin up will cancel the one with spin down [29]. The net magnetic moment,
then, for an atom is the sum of magnetic moments of each constituent electron, including
both orbital and spin contributions, and taking into account moment calculations for an atom
having completely filled electron shells or subshells, when all electrons are considered, there
is total cancellation of both total and spin moments. Thus, materials are composed of atoms
having completely filled electron shells are not capable of being permanently magnetized.
This category includes the inert gases (Ar, Ne, He etc) as well as some ionic materials [30]
(Fig. 1.1).
Magnetism, the power of attracting iron by a material, is known to mankind for centuries
before Christ. The oldest magnetic material or simply magnet, so called magnetite (Fe3O4)
is a mineral was initially found in the district of Magnesia of the modern Turkey. The
word magnet is a Greek word and known from the name of district. Almost everyone is
familiar with what a magnetic material can do but very few know how a magnet works. The
magnetic properties of materials are entirely due to the motion of electrons of the atoms. To
understand this phenomenon one must first grasp the inextricable connections that exist
copper wire into the form of a coil and connecting the wire to a battery. A magnetic field is
created in the coil but it remains there only while electricity flows through the wire. The
field created by the magnet is associated with the motions and interactions of its electrons,
the minute charged particles which orbit the nucleus of each atom. Electricity is the
permanent magnet in its own right. The circulating electron produces its own orbital
magnetic moment, measured in Bohr magnetrons (μB), and there is also a spin magnetic
moment associated with it due to the electron itself spinning, like the earth, on its own
axis (illustrated in fig.1.1) [31]. In most materials there are resultant magnetic moments,
due to the electrons being grouped in pairs causing the magnetic moment to be cancelled by
its neighbour. In a certain magnetic material the magnetic moments of a large proportion of
the electrons align, producing an unfilled magnetic field. The field produced in the material
(or by an electromagnet) has a direction of flow and any magnet will experience a force
trying to
align it with an externally applied field, just like a compass needle [32].
Fig. 1.2 (a, b): Origin of magnetism-(a) orbital magnetic moment
These forces are used to drive electric motors, produce sounds in a speaker system, control
the voice coil in a CD player, etc. The interactions between magnetism and electricity are
therefore an essential aspect of many devices we use every day. The magnetic moments of
the electrons are so oriented that they cancel one another out and the atom as a whole has
no net magnetic moment. This leads to diamagnetism and the cancellation of magnetic
moment is only partial and the atom is left with a net magnetic moment and the atom is called
Antiferromagnetism [33].
A popular theory of magnetism considers the molecular alignment of the material. This is
known as Weber's theory. This theory assumes that all magnetic substances are composed
of tiny molecular magnets. Any unmagnetized material has the magnetic forces of its
magnetic effect. A magnetized material will have most of its molecular magnets lined up so
that the north pole of each molecule points in one direction and the South Pole faces the
several times in the same direction by a magnet, the magnetic force from the north pole of
A more modern theory of magnetism is based on the electron spin principle. From the study
of atomic structure it is known that all matter is composed of vast quantities of atoms, each
atom containing one or more orbital electrons. The electrons are considered to orbit in
various shells and sub shells depending upon their distance from the nucleus. The structure
of the atom has previously been compared to the solar system, wherein the electrons orbiting
the nucleus correspond to the planets orbiting the sun. Along with its orbital motion about
the sun, each planet also revolves on its axis. It is believed that the electron also revolves on
An atom with an atomic number of 26, such as iron (Fe), has 26 protons in the nucleus and
magnetic fields will be neutralized. When more than 13 electrons spin in either direction, the
mb, In minerals, the transition elements are in a variety of oxidation states. Fe commonly
occurs as Fe2+ and Fe3+. When losing electrons to form ions, transition metals lose the 4s
mb. Similarly Fe2+ has 4 mb and Ti4+ has no unpaired spins. Iron is the main magnetic species
in geological materials, but Mn2+ (5 mb) and Cr3+ (3 mb) occur in trace amounts. The
10
Study And Survey on Magnetism and Their Related Phenomena
INTRODUCTION
Elements which are responsible for most of the paramagnetic behavior observed in rocks [36].
11