From a magnetic viewpoint, materials can be classified into five types: diamagnetic, paramagnetic, antiferromagnetic, ferromagnetic, and ferrimagnetic. Materials showing ferromagnetic or ferrimagnetic properties are called magnetic materials. These magnetic materials can be further divided into soft magnetic materials, permanent magnetic materials, gyromagnetic materials, rectangular hysteresis materials, and piezomagnetic materials.
Soft magnetic materials, also known as soft magnets, are different from hard magnets. People often confuse “soft” and “hard” with physical hardness, leading to the wrong idea that soft magnets are like rubber magnets. In reality, “soft” and “hard” describe magnetic properties. Soft magnetic material reacts quickly to changes in external magnetic fields and provides high magnetic flux with low energy loss. They have low coercivity and high permeability, which makes them easy to magnetize and demagnetize. Soft magnets are commonly used in the cores of transformers, inductors, and electric motors.
