THE BIRTH OF THE MAGNETIC MATERIALS SCIENCE (1)

A first classification of materials according to their magnetic behaviour was

suggested in 1845 by M. Faraday, who classified all of substances as
paramagnetic or diamagnetic. Ferromagnetism was seen as a particular case
of paramagnetism. At the beginning of the twentieth century there were just
three known elements, iron, cobalt and nickel, some of their alloys and
lodestone which had strong magnetic properties. The French physical
chemist Pierre Curie (1903 Nobel Prize in Physics) made the first systematic
measurements (1895) of the effect of the temperature on magnetic
materials ( Curie's law ).

A portrait of M. Faraday
The explanation of the behaviour of diamagnetic and paramagnetic
substances when temperature is varied was given in 1905 by another
French physicist, Paul Langevin . He assumed each molecule in a
paramagnet to have a definite magnetic moment and deduced the
Curie's law using classical statistical theory. The Langevin's theory was
extended two years later by the French Pierre Weiss , professor at the
Zurich Polytechnikum. Assuming the existence of an extra field
(molecular or exchange field ) proportional to the magnetization, acting
on the magnetic moments, Weiss modified the Curie's law (Curie-Weiss
law ) explaining why certain materials undergo a paramagnetic to
ferromagnetic transition when temperature is cooled and predicting the
appearing of a spontaneous magnetization in ferromagnets. It was the
first step in the modern theory of magnetism. Weiss introduced the
theory of magnetic domains and explained the behaviour of a
ferromagnet under a complete field cycling ( hysteresis cycle ).