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Magnetically soft but mechanically tough alloys

Soft magnetic materials can be magnetized and demagnetized by weak magnetic fields, but lack the strength, toughness and malleability needed for many applications. An alloy that solves this problem has now been developed.
  1. Easo P. George

    1. Easo P. George is in the Materials Science and Engineering Department, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996, USA, and at the Institute for Materials, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.

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Iron filings dropped on a sheet of paper and given a good shake move about haphazardly without settling into any particular arrangement. If this process is repeated with a bar magnet placed underneath the paper, the filings arrange themselves into elliptical patterns, revealing the otherwise invisible magnetic lines of force. The filings behave in this way because iron is a ‘soft’ magnetic material: it is easily magnetized when a weak magnetic field is applied, and easily demagnetized when the field is removed or reversed slightly1,2.

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Nature 608, 270-271 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-02103-1

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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