2. Nanocrystalline ferromagnetic materials

In the 1990s, a new field of physics was born: that of nanocrystalline materials. These are crystalline media with grains whose dimensions range from a few nm to around 100 nm. These materials include ceramics with interesting mechanical properties, nanocrystalline semiconductors (silicon, for example), various composites (precipitation of semiconductor nanograins in oxide glasses) and soft or hard magnetic materials. The small grain size of these materials gives rise to novel physical properties with a wide range of applications.

In this section, we focus solely on nanocrystals with soft ferromagnetic properties, i.e., in particular, a low coercive field strength.