Magnetism and Magnetic Materials

The property of certain substances which attract or repel other objects is known as magnetism. Every atom in a substance has electrons, particles that carry electric charges. Magnetic materials are those that can be either involved or resisted when placed in an external magnetic field and can be magnetized themselves. Materials in between permanent and soft are almost completely used as recording media and have no other general term to describe them. Other classifications for types of magnetic materials are subsets of soft or hard materials, such as magnetoresistive and magnetostrictive materials.