Magnetic materials

The impressive progress in ferromaganetic, materials in the 20th century is reviewed briefly. The key to practical applications has been mastery of coercivity and magnetization reversal. Current trends in the areas of hard magnets, soft magnets and magnetic recording are described and extrapolated. Promising developments are, the ability to structure materials and devices on characteristic magnetic length scales in the nanometre range, and the emergence of the new science of spin electronics. A list of ten desirable new magnetic materials is included. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science BY All rights reserved.