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MAGNETISM
[MAGNETIZATION: MISCELLANEOUS EFFECTS


to the publications cited below.[1] Useful instructions have been furnished by Carl Barus (Terrestrial Magnetism, 1897, 2, 11) for the preparation of magnets calculated to withstand the effects of time, percussion and ordinary temperature variations. The metal, having first been uniformly tempered glass-hard, should be annealed in steam at 100° C. for twenty or thirty hours; it should then be magnetized to saturation, and finally “aged” by a second immersion in steam for about five hours.

Magnetic Alloys of Non-Magnetic Metals.—The interesting discovery was made by F. Heusler[2] in 1903 that certain alloys of the non-magnetic metal manganese with other non-magnetic substances were strongly magnetizable, their susceptibility being in some cases equal to that of cast iron. The metals used in different combinations included tin, aluminium, arsenic, antimony, bismuth and boron; each of these, when united in certain proportions with manganese, together with a larger quantity of copper (which appears to serve merely as a menstruum), constituted a magnetizable alloy. So far, the best results have been attained with aluminium, and the permeability was greatest when the percentages of manganese and aluminium were approximately proportional to the atomic weights of the two metals. Thus in an alloy containing 26.5% of manganese and 14.6% of aluminium, the rest being copper, the induction for H = 20 was 4500, and for H = 150, 5550. When the proportion of aluminium to manganese was made a little greater or smaller, the permeability was diminished. Next to aluminium, tin was found to be the most effective of the metals enumerated above. In all such magnetizable alloys the presence of manganese appears to be essential, and there can be little doubt that the magnetic quality of the mixtures is derived solely from this component. Manganese, though belonging (with chromium) to the iron group of metals, is commonly classed as a paramagnetic, its susceptibility being very small in comparison with that of the recognized ferromagnetics; but it is remarkable that its atomic susceptibility in solutions of its salts is even greater than that of iron. Now iron, nickel and cobalt all lose their magnetic quality when heated above certain critical temperatures which vary greatly for the three metals, and it was suspected by Faraday[3] as early as 1845 that manganese might really be a ferromagnetic metal having a critical temperature much below the ordinary temperature of the air. He therefore cooled a piece of the metal to −105° C., the lowest temperature then attainable, but failed to produce any change in its magnetic quality. The critical temperature (if there is one) was not reached in Faraday’s experiment; possibly even the temperature of −250° C., which by the use of liquid hydrogen has now become accessible, might still be too high.[4] But it has been shown that the critical temperatures of iron and nickel may be changed by the addition of certain other substances. Generally they are lowered, sometimes, however, they are raised[5]; and C. E. Guillaume[6] explains the ferromagnetism of Heusler’s alloy by supposing that the naturally low critical temperature of the manganese contained in it is greatly raised by the admixture of another appropriate metal, such as aluminium or tin; thus the alloy as a whole becomes magnetizable at the ordinary temperature. If this view is correct, it may also be possible to prepare magnetic alloys of chromium, the only other paramagnetic metals of the iron group.

J. A. Fleming and R. A. Hadfield[7] have made very careful experiments on an alloy containing 22.42% of manganese, 11.65% of aluminium and 60.49% of copper. The magnetization curve was found to be of the same general form as that of a paramagnetic metal, and gave indications that with a sufficient force magnetic saturation would probably be attained. There was considerable hysteresis, the energy-loss per cycle being fairly represented by W = 0.0005495B2.238. The hysteretic exponent is therefore much higher than in the case of iron, nickel and cobalt, for which its value is approximately 1.6.

10. Miscellaneous Effects of Magnetization

Electrical Conductivity.—The specific resistance of many electric conductors is known to be temporarily changed by the action of a magnetic field, but except in the case of bismuth the effect is very small.

A. Gray and E. Taylor Jones (Proc. Roy. Soc., 1900, 67, 208) found that the resistance of a soft iron wire was increased by about 1/700 in a field of 320 C.G.S. units. The effect appeared to be closely connected with the intensity of magnetization, being approximately proportional to I. G. Barlow (Proc. Roy. Soc., 1903, 71, 30), experimenting with wires of iron, steel and nickel, showed that in weak fields the change of resistance was proportional to a function aI2 + bI4 + cI6, where a, b and c are constants for each specimen. W. E. Williams (Phil. Mag., 1902, 4, 430) found that for nickel the curves showing changes of resistance in relation to magnetizing force were strikingly similar in form to those showing changes of length. H. Tomlinson (Phil. Trans., 1883, Part I., 153) discovered in 1881 that the resistance of a bismuth rod was slightly increased when the rod was subjected to longitudinal magnetic force, and a year or two later A. Righi (Atti R. A. Lincei, 1883–1884, 19, 545) showed that a more considerable alteration was produced when the magnetic force was applied transversely to the bismuth conductor; he also noticed that the effect was largely dependent upon temperature (see also P. Lenard, Wied. Ann., 1890, 39, 619). Among the most important experiments on the influence of magnetic force at different temperatures are those of J. B. Henderson and of Dewar and Fleming. Henderson (Phil. Mag., 1894, 38, 488) used a little spiral of the pure electrolytic bismuth wire prepared by Hartmann and Braun; this was placed between the pole-pieces of an electromagnet and subjected to fields of various strengths up to nearly 39,000 units. At constant temperature the resistance increased with the field; the changes in the resistance of the spiral when the temperature was 18° C. are indicated in the annexed table, from which it will be seen that in the strongest transverse field reached the resistance was increased more than threefold. Other experiments showed the relation of resistance to temperature (from 0° to about 90°) in different constant fields. It appears that as the temperature rises the resistance decreases to a minimum and then increases, the minimum point occurring at a higher temperature the stronger the field. For H = 11,500 the temperature of minimum resistance was about 50°; for much lower or higher values of H the actual minimum did not occur within the range of temperature dealt with. Dewar and Fleming (Proc. Roy. Soc., 1897, 60, 425) worked with a similar specimen of bismuth, and their results for a constant temperature of 19° agree well with those of Henderson. They also experimented with constant temperatures of −79°, −185° and −203°, and found that at these low temperatures the effect of magnetization was enormously increased. The following table gives some of their results, the specific resistance of the bismuth being expressed in C.G.S. units.

H. R. H. R.
0 1.000 27450 2.540
6310 1.253 32730 2.846
12500 1.630 38900 3.334
20450 2.160    


Field
Strength.
Temp. 19°C. Temp. −185°C.
Spec. Res. Comp. Res. Spec. Res. Comp. Res.
0 116200 1.000 41000 1.00
1375 118200 1.017 103300 2.52
2750 123000 1.059 191500 4.67
8800 149200 1.284 738000 18.0 
14150 186200 1.602 1730000 42.2 
21800 257000 2.212 6190000 151   

At the temperature of liquid air (−185°) the application of a field of 21,800 multiplied the resistance of the bismuth no less than 150 times. Fig. 29 shows the variations of resistance in relation to temperature for fields of different constant values. It will be seen that for H = 2450 and H = 5500 the minimum resistance occurs at temperatures of about −80° and −7° respectively.

Hall Effect.—If an electric current is passed along a strip of thin metal, and the two points at opposite ends of an equipotential line are connected with a galvanometer, its needle will of course not be deflected. But the application of a magnetic field at right angles to the plane of the metal causes the equipotential lines to rotate through a small angle, and the points at

  1. J. Trowbridge and S. Sheldon, Phil. Mag., 1890, 29, 136; W. H. Preece, Journ. Inst. Elec. Eng., 1890, 19, 62; Electrician, 1890, 25, 546; I. Klemençiç, Wien. Ber., 1896, 105, IIa, 635; B. O. Peirce, Am. Journ. Sci., 1896, 2, 347; A. Abt, Wied. Ann., 1898, 66, 116; F. Osmond, C. R., 1899, 128, 1513.
  2. Deutsch. phys. Gesell. Verh., 1903, 5, 220 and 224.
  3. Exp. Res., iii. 440.
  4. No record can be found of experiments with manganese at the temperature of liquid air or hydrogen; probably, however, negative results would not be published.
  5. The critical temperature of iron, for instance, is raised more than 100° by the addition of a little carbon and tungsten.
  6. Bull. Soc. Int. des Électriciens, 1906, 6, 301.
  7. Proc. Roy. Soc., 1905, 76A, 271.