De meeste materialen verliezen hun magnetische eigenschappen bij bepaalde temperaturen, maar zolang je een materiaal daar niet aan blootstelt ( of andere deformaties; sommige magneten kunnen hun magnetisme ook verliezen na harde klappen, geloof ik ) kan deze in principe erg lang magnetisch blijven. Leuke quotejes:
quote:
Generally speaking, elements and even compounds are divided into three
categories:
1-Paramagnetic
2-Diamagnetic
3-Ferromagnetic
Before going into details, there is a theory in chemistry called quantum
numbers. This theory explains that the electrons are not at rest, but they
are rotating and spinning in their atomic orbitals. This spin causes a
magnetic field. This magnetic field is manifested only if the electron is
not paired.
(It is well known that the old theory that claimed that the electrons
rotate in circular paths is no longer valid. The new theories says that
the electrons exist in so called orbitals, which is a space that can
contain up to 2 electrons. If the one electron exists, the magnetic
properties will be manifested.)
Returning back to our questions, the first category is for the elements or
compounds that show some magnetic properties under certain conditions.
These materials have unbalanced (unpaired) electron(s) in their orbitals.
These unpaired electrons spin, and their spinning creates magnetic fields.
Each molecule, hence, forms a magnet. Thus if a magnetic field is applied
to these molecular magnets, they will arrange themselves and align to
increase this effect. This type of magnetism is far weaker than the one
due to Iron and some other compounds.
Experimentally, paramagnetic property was found to directly proportional
to the applied magnetic field, and inversely proportional to the
temperature (Curie's law). There is a famous example in nearly all Physics
and Chemistry textbooks showing liquid oxygen being poured between
magnetic poles; oxygen is seen being attracted to the poles.
The other type is diamagnetism. These are materials that have their
electrons paired in their orbitals, thus their magnetic effect cancels
out. However, if a magnetic field is applied to such a material, the
fields in the atom will be disturbed causing a weak magnetic field to
appear, which is far weaker than the one due to paramagnets.
The last type is ferromagnetism. Iron, Cobalt, gadolinium, dysprosium, and
Nickel show ferromagnetic properties. These are the materials used to
fabricate permanent magnets. In addition to the unpaired electrons, these
materials have other magnetic properties described by the Domain theory.
This theory proposes that these materials contain microscopic regions
called domains, within which the magnetic fields due to atoms are aligned.
Their volumes is about 10E-12 to 10E-8 cubic meters. Under normal
conditions, domains are randomly oriented, and they have no magnetic
effect. However, when they are put in a magnetic field, they tend to
perfectly arrange themselves. So maximum magnetic property is achieved. In
order to magnetize one of these elements, we use a magnet and we move it
on the ferromagnetic metal in one direction; so that domains can be
arranged. Or this is done using the magnetic field created from a
solenoid, and using it to arrange the domains in one direction.
Returning back to your questions.
Why is it that only Iron (and it's products, e.g. Steel) is magnetic?
Could Titanium (for example) become ionized to the point of being
magnetic? Does this happen in nature, or via man-made methods which I
just don't know about? What are all metals that can become magnets? Why
or why not?
I guess you can now attribute the answer of every question to a part in my
discussion. However, I would like to point out that the magnetic property
is because of the electrons and their pairing, because, as I said, oxygen
for example may show magnetic properties. So, if you want to know the
magnetism of an element or a compound, look at its electron configuration
and you will know how to categorize it.
Magnetism, an aspect of electromagnetism, one of the fundamental forces of
nature. Magnetic forces are produced by the motion of charged particles
such as electrons, indicating the close relationship between electricity
and magnetism. The unifying frame for these two forces is called
electromagnetic theory . The most familiar evidence of magnetism is the
attractive or repulsive force observed to act between magnetic materials
such as iron. More subtle effects of magnetism, however, are found in all
matter. In recent times these effects have provided important clues to the
atomic structure of matter.
History of Study
The phenomenon of magnetism has been known of since ancient times. The
mineral lodestone (see Magnetite), an oxide of iron that has the property
of attracting iron objects, was known to the Greeks, Romans, and Chinese.
When a piece of iron is stroked with lodestone, the iron itself acquires
the same ability to attract other pieces of iron. The magnets thus
produced are polarized-that is, each has two sides or ends called
north-seeking and south-seeking poles. Like poles repel one another, and
unlike poles attract.
The compass was first used for navigation in the West some time after AD
1200. In the 13th century, important investigations of magnets were made
by the French scholar Petrus Peregrinus. His discoveries stood for nearly
300 years, until the English physicist and physician William Gilbert
published his book Of Magnets, Magnetic Bodies, and the Great Magnet of
the Earth in 1600. Gilbert applied scientific methods to the study of
electricity and magnetism. He pointed out that the earth itself behaves
like a giant magnet, and through a series of experiments, he investigated
and disproved several incorrect notions about magnetism that were accepted
as being true at the time. Subsequently, in 1750, the English geologist
John Michell invented a balance that he used in the study of magnetic
forces. He showed that the attraction and repulsion of magnets decrease as
the squares of the distance from the respective poles increase. The French
physicist Charles Augustin de Coulomb, who had measured the forces between
electric charges, later verified Michell's observation with high
precision.
Electromagnetic Theory
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the theories of electricity and
magnetism were investigated simultaneously. In 1819 an important discovery
was made by the Danish physicist Hans Christian Oersted, who found that a
magnetic needle could be deflected by an electric current flowing through
a wire. This discovery, which showed a connection between electricity and
magnetism, was followed up by the French scientist André Marie Ampère, who
studied the forces between wires carrying electric currents, and by the
French physicist Dominique François Jean Arago, who magnetized a piece of
iron by placing it near a current-carrying wire. In 1831 the English
scientist Michael Faraday discovered that moving a magnet near a wire
induces an electric current in that wire, the inverse effect to that found
by Oersted: Oersted showed that an electric current creates a magnetic
field, while Faraday showed that a magnetic field can be used to create an
electric current. The full unification of the theories of electricity and
magnetism was achieved by the English physicist James Clerk Maxwell, who
predicted the existence of electromagnetic waves and identified light as
an electromagnetic phenomenon.
Subsequent studies of magnetism were increasingly concerned with an
understanding of the atomic and molecular origins of the magnetic
properties of matter. In 1905 the French physicist Paul Langevin produced
a theory regarding the temperature dependence of the magnetic properties
of paramagnets (discussed below), which was based on the atomic structure
of matter. This theory is an early example of the description of
large-scale properties in terms of the properties of electrons and atoms.
Langevin's theory was subsequently expanded by the French physicist Pierre
Ernst Weiss, who postulated the existence of an internal, "molecular"
magnetic field in materials such as iron. This concept, when combined with
Langevin's theory, served to explain the properties of strongly magnetic
materials such as lodestone.
After Weiss's theory, magnetic properties were explored in greater and
greater detail. The theory of atomic structure of Danish physicist Niels
Bohr, for example, provided an understanding of the periodic table and
showed why magnetism occurs in transition elements such as iron and the
rare earth elements, or in compounds containing these elements. The
American physicists Samuel Abraham Goudsmit and George Eugene Uhlenbeck
showed in 1925 that the electron itself has spin and behaves like a small
bar magnet. (At the atomic level, magnetism is measured in terms of
magnetic moments-a magnetic moment is a vector quantity that depends on
the strength and orientation of the magnetic field, and the configuration
of the object that produces the magnetic field.) The German physicist
Werner Heisenberg gave a detailed explanation for Weiss's molecular field
in 1927, on the basis of the newly-developed quantum mechanics (see
Quantum Theory). Other scientists then predicted many more complex atomic
arrangements of magnetic moments, with diverse magnetic properties.
The Magnetic Field
Objects such as a bar magnet or a current-carrying wire can influence
other magnetic materials without physically contacting them, because
magnetic objects produce a magnetic field. Magnetic fields are usually
represented by magnetic flux lines. At any point, the direction of the
magnetic field is the same as the direction of the flux lines, and the
strength of the magnetic field is proportional to the space between the
flux lines. For example, in a bar magnet, the flux lines emerge at one end
of the magnet, then curve around the other end; the flux lines can be
thought of as being closed loops, with part of the loop inside the magnet,
and part of the loop outside. At the ends of the magnet, where the flux
lines are closest together, the magnetic field is strongest; toward the
side of the magnet, where the flux lines are farther apart, the magnetic
field is weaker. Depending on their shapes and magnetic strengths,
different kinds of magnets produce different patterns of flux lines. The
pattern of flux lines created by magnets or any other object that creates
a magnetic field can be mapped by using a compass or small iron filings.
Magnets tend to align themselves along magnetic flux lines. Thus a
compass, which is a small magnet that is free to rotate, will tend to
orient itself in the direction of the magnetic flux lines. By noting the
direction of the compass needle when the compass is placed at many
locations around the source of the magnetic field, the pattern of flux
lines can be inferred. Alternatively, when iron filings are placed around
an object that creates a magnetic field, the filings will line up along
the flux lines, revealing the flux line pattern.
Magnetic fields influence magnetic materials, and also influence charged
particles that move through the magnetic field. Generally, when a charged
particle moves through a magnetic field, it feels a force that is at right
angles both to the velocity of the charged particle and the magnetic
field. Since the force is always perpendicular to the velocity of the
charged particle, a charged particle in a magnetic field moves in a curved
path. Magnetic fields are used to change the paths of charged particles in
devices such as particle accelerators and mass spectrometers.
Kinds of Magnetic Materials
The magnetic properties of materials are classified in a number of
different ways.
One classification of magnetic materials-into diamagnetic, paramagnetic,
and ferromagnetic-is based on how the material reacts to a magnetic field.
Diamagnetic materials, when placed in a magnetic field, have a magnetic
moment induced in them that opposes the direction of the magnetic field.
This property is now understood to be a result of electric currents that
are induced in individual atoms and molecules. These currents, according
to Ampere's law, produce magnetic moments in opposition to the applied
field. Many materials are diamagnetic; the strongest ones are metallic
bismuth and organic molecules, such as benzene, that have a cyclic
structure, enabling the easy establishment of electric currents.
Paramagnetic behavior results when the applied magnetic field lines up all
the existing magnetic moments of the individual atoms or molecules that
make up the material. This results in an overall magnetic moment that adds
to the magnetic field. Paramagnetic materials usually contain transition
metals or rare earth elements that possess unpaired electrons.
Paramagnetism in nonmetallic substances is usually characterized by
temperature dependence; that is, the size of an induced magnetic moment
varies inversely to the temperature. This is a result of the increasing
difficulty of ordering the magnetic moments of the individual atoms along
the direction of the magnetic field as the temperature is raised.
A ferromagnetic substance is one that, like iron, retains a magnetic
moment even when the external magnetic field is reduced to zero. This
effect is a result of a strong interaction between the magnetic moments of
the individual atoms or electrons in the magnetic substance that causes
them to line up parallel to one another. In ordinary circumstances these
ferromagnetic materials are divided into regions called domains; in each
domain, the atomic moments are aligned parallel to one another. Separate
domains have total moments that do not necessarily point in the same
direction. Thus, although an ordinary piece of iron might not have an
overall magnetic moment, magnetization can be induced in it by placing the
iron in a magnetic field, thereby aligning the moments of all the
individual domains. The energy expended in reorienting the domains from
the magnetized back to the demagnetized state manifests itself in a lag in
response, known as hysteresis.
Ferromagnetic materials, when heated, eventually lose their magnetic
properties. This loss becomes complete above the Curie temperature, named
after the French physicist Pierre Curie, who discovered it in 1895. (The
Curie temperature of metallic iron is about 770° C/1300° F.)
Other Magnetic Orderings
In recent years, a greater understanding of the atomic origins of magnetic
properties has resulted in the discovery of other types of magnetic
ordering. Substances are known in which the magnetic moments interact in
such a way that it is energetically favorable for them to line up
antiparallel; such materials are called antiferromagnets. There is a
temperature analogous to the Curie temperature called the Neel
temperature, above which antiferromagnetic order disappears.
Other, more complex atomic arrangements of magnetic moments have also been
found. Ferrimagnetic substances have at least two different kinds of
atomic magnetic moments, which are oriented antiparallel to one another.
Because the moments are of different size, a net magnetic moment remains,
unlike the situation in an antiferromagnet where all the magnetic moments
cancel out. Interestingly, lodestone is a ferrimagnet rather than a
ferromagnet; two types of iron ions, each with a different magnetic
moment, are in the material. Even more complex arrangements have been
found in which the magnetic moments are arranged in spirals. Studies of
these arrangements have provided much information on the interactions
between magnetic moments in solids.
Applications
Numerous applications of magnetism and of magnetic materials have arisen
in the past 100 years. The electromagnet, for example, is the basis of the
electric motor and the transformer. In more recent times, the development
of new magnetic materials has also been important in the computer
revolution. Computer memories can be fabricated using bubble domains.
These domains are actually smaller regions of magnetization that are
either parallel or antiparallel to the overall magnetization of the
material. Depending on this direction, the bubble indicates either a one
or a zero, thus serving as the units of the binary number system used in
computers. Magnetic materials are also important constituents of tapes and
disks on which data are stored.
In addition to the atomic-sized magnetic units used in computers, large,
powerful magnets are crucial to a variety of modern technologies. Magnetic
levitation trains use strong magnets to enable the train to float above
the track so that there is no friction between the vehicle and the tracks
to slow the train down. Powerful magnetic fields are used in nuclear
magnetic resonance imaging, an important diagnostic tool used by doctors.
Superconducting magnets are used in today's most powerful particle
accelerators to keep the accelerated particles focused and moving in a
curved path.