Mictomagnetism is a spin system in which various

exchange interactions In chemistry and physics, the exchange interaction is a quantum mechanical constraint on the states of indistinguishable particles. While sometimes called an exchange force, or, in the case of fermions, Pauli repulsion, its consequences cannot alw ...

are mixed. It is observed in several kinds of

alloys An alloy is a mixture of chemical elements of which in most cases at least one is a metallic element, although it is also sometimes used for mixtures of elements; herein only metallic alloys are described. Metallic alloys often have properties ...

, including Cu–Mn, Fe–Al and Ni–Mn alloys. Cooled in zero magnetic field, these materials have low

remanence Remanence or remanent magnetization or residual magnetism is the magnetization left behind in a ferromagnetic material (such as iron) after an external magnetic field is removed. Colloquially, when a magnet is "magnetized", it has remanence. The ...

and

coercivity Coercivity, also called the magnetic coercivity, coercive field or coercive force, is a measure of the ability of a ferromagnetic material to withstand an external magnetic field without becoming Magnetization, demagnetized. Coercivity is usual ...

. Cooled in a magnetic field, they have much larger remanence, and the

hysteresis loop Hysteresis is the dependence of the state of a system on its history. For example, a magnet may have more than one possible magnetic moment in a given magnetic field, depending on how the field changed in the past. Plots of a single component of ...

is shifted in the direction opposite to the field (an effect similar to

exchange bias Exchange bias or exchange anisotropy occurs in bilayers (or multilayers) of magnetic materials where the hard magnetization behavior of an antiferromagnetic thin film causes a shift in the soft magnetization curve of a ferromagnetic film. The ex ...

References

Further reading