Elsevier, 1988. 614 p. ISBN: 978-0-444-87106-0This Handbook on the Properties of Magnetically Ordered Substances, Ferromagnetic Materials, has a dual purpose. As a textbook it is intended to help those who wish to be introduced to a given topic in the field of magnetism without the need to read the vast amount of literature published. As a work of reference it is intended for scientists active in magnetism research. To this dual purpose, the volumes of the Handbook are composed of topical review articles written by leading authorities. In each of these articles an extensive description is given in graphical as well as in tabular form, much emphasis being placed on the discussion of the experimental material in the framework of physics, chemistry and materials science.The original aim of Peter Wohlfarth was to combine new developments in magnetism with the achievements of earlier compilations of monographs, to produce a worthy successor to Bozorth's classical and monumental book Ferromagnetism. It is mainly for this reason that Ferromagnetic Materials was chosen as title for the Handbook series, although the latter aims at giving a more complete cross-section of magnetism than Bozorth's book. Here one has to realize that many of the present specialized areas of magnetism were non-existent when Bozorth's book was first published. Furthermore, a comprehensible description of the properties of many magnetically ordered materials can hardly be given without considering, for instance, narrow-band phenomena, crystal-field effects or the results of band-structure calculations. For this reason Peter Wohlfarth and I considered it desirable that the Handbook series be composed of articles that would allow the readers to orient themselves more broadly in the field of magnetism, taking the risk that the title of
the Handbook series might be slightly misleading.Publication of the Volumes of the Handbook cannot be considered as having proceeded by a process of continuous growth. Volumes I and 2 first appeared in 1980, and were followed by Volume 3 in 1982. All three Volumes have been reprinted in the meantime and many of the articles contained in them have frequently been quoted in the scientific literature as providing an authoritative description of the achievements made in a given subfield of magnetism. In the early
1980's the interest of the scientific community in magnetism declined considerably. Many a scientist had moved to greener pastures and, in a way, this hampered completion of Volume
4. However, at the time that I joined Peter Wohlfarth as co-editor of the Handbook series early in 1986, we both had the impression that there was a pronounced increase in interest from the scientific as well as from the technological side, to the extent that one could speak of a revival of magnetism. Topics like the Kondo effect, spin glasses and valence fluctuations had kept the fires burning, and a considerable profileration in research effort occurred in other areas like amorphous magnetism, permanent magnets and magneto-optics. The magnetism of thin films and multi-layers and heavy-electron systems became novel topics. Improvements in band-structure calculations and the possibility of applying these calculations to more complicated structures started to play an important role in the understanding of many features of magnetism. All these facts made it necessary that we again pose the question "what is magnetism and where does it go? "The outcome of such considerations was that we eventually decided to include chapters in the Handbook series that were able to provide the readership with an insight into modern trends in magnetism and new achievements in this area. Several such topics have already been mentioned above. Other topics of this kind dealt with the increased activity and investigations of the magnetism of intermetallics and with investigations of the magnetic properties of hydrides. We also felt that there should be an account of the progress that had been made in the understanding of quadrupolar interactions in 4f systems and their role in magnetic ordering and in magneto-elastic effects. Furthermore, the magnetism of alloys and compounds of 3d elements and 4f elements already had a long-standing tradition. But new achievements were made in this area, and these were often obtained with the more sophisticated experimental techniques available nowadays. This also made it necessary to include chapters covering the progress made in these latter fields.It will be clear that we had to abandon the ideal of restricting the Handbook series to four volumes. The large number of topics will require at least one more volume. Both Volume 4 and 5 will be published under the joint editorship of Peter Wohlfarth and myself. Looking into the future, it is highly probable that the Handbook series will grow even beyond five volumes, since the revival of magnetism is still going on. This is, for instance, manifest from the extraordinarily large number of contributions submitted for presentation at the International Conference on Magnetism, to be held in Paris in July 1988. The number of contributions (about 1300) exceeds by far the number of contributions (about 900) presented at the preceding ICM Conference held in San Francisco in 1985.Peter Wohlfarth was one of the few scientists who had the gift of combining a profound and extensive knowledge of magnetism with a considerable amount of wisdom. It was a privilege for me to work with him as co-editor of this Handbook series. I will miss his clear perception of the importance of new developments arising both on the scientific and the technological side, as I will miss his typical type of humor.During my editorial activities I have greatly profited from the expertise of Elsevier Science Publishers. I wish to thank Peter de Chfitel, in particular, for his guidance and competent advice. Thanks are due to Mr. H. Pruntel who has made considerable efforts to speed up the publication of this volume.Obituary.
From the Preface to Volume 3 by the late Professor E.P. Wohlfarth.
Preface to Volume 4.
Contents.
Contents of Volumes 1-3.
List of contributors.
Permanent Magnet Materials Based on 3d-rich Ternary Compounds.
Rare Earth-Cobalt Permanent Magnets.
Ferromagnetic Transition Metal Intermetallic Compounds.
Intermetallic Compounds of Actinides.
Magneto-optical Properties of Alloys and Intermetallic Compounds.
Author Index.
Subject Index.
Materials Index.
