Permanent magnets are materials where the magnetic field is generated by the internal structure of the material itself.

Inside atoms and crystals you have both electrons and the nucleus of the atom. Both the nucleus and the electrons themselves act like little magnets, like little spinning chunks of electric charge, and they have magnetic fields inherent in the particles themselves. There's also a magnetic field that's generated by the orbits of the electrons as they move about the nucleus. So the magnetic fields of permanent magnets are the sums of the nuclear spins, the electron spins and the orbits of the electrons themselves.

In many materials, the magnetic fields are pointing in all sorts of random directions and cancel each other out and there's no permanent magnetism. But in certain materials, called ferromagnets, all the spins and the orbits of the electrons will line up, causing the materials to become magnetic. This would be your normal iron, cobalt, nickel.

Permanent magnets are limited by the structure of the material. And the strongest magnetic field of a permanent magnet is about 8,000 gauss.

Permanent magnets are magnets with magnetic fields that do not dissipate under normal circumstances. They are made from hard ferromagnetic materials, which are resistant to becoming demagnetized.

Permanent magnets are highly susceptible to the influence of external magnetic fields. Once magnetized, they retain their magnetic properties for a relatively longer time than temporary magnets. Permanent magnets are made from material that will inherit the properties of a strong magnetic field when exposed to it. Many materials can temporarily inherit the properties of nearby magnetic material, but these properties often fade quickly, returning the material to its nonmagnetic state. In a permanent magnet the magnetic field continues to be exerted once it has been inherited. Alnico and hard ferrite are two examples of material capable of becoming a permanent magnet.

Permanent magnets also have two magnetic poles: north and south magnetic poles. Their magnetic field is also strongest and densest at the magnetic poles.

Under most circumstances, a magnetized material will retain its magnetic field in a variety of environments. Alnico, for example, will retain its properties in temperatures up to 550 °C. This wide-ranging tolerance of temperatures creates versatile and capable magnets. Other materials, such as those combined to make flexible magnets, retain their magnetism only up to 100 °C and have a much more limited range of applications.

Coercivity (or the coercive field) is the property of a material to resist demagnetization due to the intensity of the material's magnetic field. Coercivity is measured by the extent to which a demagnetizing field must be applied to reduce the material's magnetism to zero. Permanent magnets are composed of materials with a high coercivity which retain their inherited magnetic fields under most conditions, unless intentionally demagnetized.

SNT Group's high-performance permanent magnets have a wide variety of applications that are frequently used for many types of consumer, commercial, industrial, and technical applications:

• Holding Systems Requring Very High Forces
• Sensors
• Reed switches
• Hard Disc Drives
• Audio Equipment
• Acoustic Pick-Ups
• Headphones & Loudspeakers
• MRI Scanners
• Magnetically Coupled Pumps
• Motors & Generators
• Magnetic Tool Holders
• Magnetic Bearings
• Dental Instruments
• Door Catches
• Medical Devices
• Magnetic Separators
• Lifting Machinery
• Crafts & Model Making
• Hanging Artwork
• Levitation Device
• POP Displays
• Commercial Signage
• Packaging Closures
• Jewelry clasps & more