Magnetic Field

Magnetic fields are produced by electric currents, which can be

macroscopic currents in wires, or microscopic currents associated with
electrons in atomic orbits. The magnetic field B is defined in terms of
force on moving charge in the Lorentz force law. The interaction of
magnetic field with charge leads to many practical applications.
Magnetic field sources are essentially dipolar in nature, having a north
and south magnetic pole. The SI unit for magnetic field is the Tesla, Index
which can be seen from the magnetic part of the Lorentz force law
Fmagnetic = qvB to be composed of (Newton x second)/(Coulomb x meter). Electromagneti
A smaller magnetic field unit is the Gauss (1 Tesla = 10,000 Gauss). c force

Magnetic field
concepts

Notes on units
 
Go Back
HyperPhysics***** Electricity and Magnetism Nave

Index
Lorentz Force Law
Electromagn
Both the electric field and magnetic field can be defined from the Lorentz etic force
force law:
Magnetic
force
The electric force is straigtforward, being in the direction of the electric
field if the charge q is positive, but the direction of the magnetic part of the
force is given by the right hand rule.

 
Go Back
HyperPhysics***** Electricity and Magnetism R Nave

Index
Magnetic Field Units
Electromagneti
The standard SI unit for magnetic field is the Tesla, which can be seen c force
from the magnetic part of the Lorentz force law Fmagnetic = qvB to be
composed of (Newton x second)/(Coulomb x meter). A smaller Magnetic field
magnetic field unit is the Gauss (1 Tesla = 10,000 Gauss). concepts
The magnetic quantity B which is being called "magnetic field" here is
sometimes called "magnetic flux density". An older unit name for the
Tesla is Webers per meter squared, with the Weber being the unit of
magnetic flux.

Magnetic field strength H

 
Go Back
HyperPhysics***** Electricity and Magnetism Nave

Sources of the Magnetic Field

When we introduced the electric field   it was apparent that electric charges were the
source of such a field. Experiments in the 19th century showed that the source of a
magnetic field   was a moving charge, or current. A detailed mathematical relation
between a charge moving at velocity   and the associated magnetic field   is known
as Ampère's law or, in another form, the Biot-Savart law. We will consider three
special cases of the results of this law. 

A magnetic field is the magnetic effect of electric currents and magnetic materials. The magnetic
field at any given point is specified by both a direction and a magnitude (or strength); as such it is
represented by a vector field.[nb 1] The term is used for two distinct but closely related fields denoted
by the symbols B and H, where H is measured in units of amperes per meter (symbol: A⋅m−1 or
A/m) in the SI. B is measured in teslas (symbol: T) and newtons per meter per ampere (symbol:
N⋅m−1⋅A−1 or N/(m⋅A)) in the SI. B is most commonly defined in terms of the Lorentz force it exerts on
moving electric charges.
Magnetic fields can be produced by moving electric charges and the intrinsic magnetic
moments of elementary particles associated with a fundamental quantum property, their spin.[1]
[2]
 In special relativity, electric and magnetic fields are two interrelated aspects of a single object,
called the electromagnetic tensor; the split of this tensor into electric and magnetic fields depends on
the relative velocity of the observer and charge. In quantum physics, the electromagnetic field is
quantized and electromagnetic interactions result from the exchange of photons.
In everyday life, magnetic fields are most often encountered as a force created by permanent
magnets, which pull on ferromagnetic materials such as iron, cobalt, or nickel, and attract or repel
other magnets.
Magnetic fields are widely used throughout modern technology, particularly in electrical
engineering and electromechanics. The Earth produces its own magnetic field, which is important in
navigation, and it shields the Earth's atmosphere from solar wind. Rotating magnetic fields are used
in both electric motors and generators. Magnetic forces give information about the charge carriers in
 a material through the Hall effect. The interaction of magnetic fields in electric devices such as
transformers is studied in the discipline of magnetic circuits.

What is a magnetic field?

A magnetic field is a picture that we use as a tool to describe how

the magnetic force is distributed in the space around and within something
magnetic. 
[Explain]

Most of us have some familiarity with everyday magnetic objects and

recognize that there can be forces between them. We understand that magnets
have two poles and that depending on the orientation of two magnets there
can be attraction (opposite poles) or repulsion (similar poles). We recognize
that there is some region extending around a magnet where this happens. The
magnetic field describes this region.

There are two different ways that a magnetic field is typically illustrated: 
[Explain : some details]

1. The magnetic field is described mathematically as a vector field. This

vector field can be plotted directly as a set of many vectors drawn on a grid.
Each vector points in the direction that a compass would point and has length
dependent on the strength of the magnetic force. 
[Explain compasses]

Arranging many small compasses in a grid pattern and placing the grid in a
magnetic field illustrates this technique. The only difference here is that a
compass doesn't indicate the strength of a field.
 Figure 1: Vector field plot for a bar magnet
Figure 1: Vector field plot for a bar magnet.

2. An alternative way to represent the information contained within a

vector field is with the use of field lines. Here we dispense with the grid
pattern and connect the vectors with smooth lines. We can draw as many
lines as we want.
Figure 2: Field line plot for a bar magnet
Figure 2: Field line plot for a bar magnet

The field-line description has some useful properties:

o Magnetic field lines never cross.

o Magnetic field lines naturally bunch together in regions where
the magnetic field is the strongest. This means that the density of field lines
indicates the strength of the field.
o Magnetic field lines don't start or stop anywhere, they always
make closed loops and will continue inside a magnetic material (though
sometimes they are not drawn this way).
o We require a way to indicate the direction of the field. This is
usually done by drawing arrowheads along the lines. Sometimes arrowheads
are not drawn and the direction must be indicated in some other way. For
historical reasons the convention is to label one region 'north' and another
'south' and draw field lines only from these 'poles'. The field is assumed to
follow the lines from north to south. 'N' and 'S' labels are usually placed on
the ends of a magnetic field source, although strictly this is arbitrary and
there is nothing special about these locations. 
[Explain magnetic field of the earth]

^\circdegree
o Field lines can be visualized quite easily in the real world. This is
commonly done with iron filings dropped on a surface near something
magnetic. Each filing behaves like a tiny magnet with a north and south pole.
The filings naturally separate from each other because similar poles repel
each other. The result is a pattern that resembles field lines. While the general
pattern will always be the same, the exact position and density of lines of
filings depends on how the filings happened to fall, their size and magnetic
properties.
Figure 3: Magnetic field lines around a bar magnet visualized using iron
filings.
Figure 3: Magnetic field lines around a bar magnet visualized using iron filings.

How do we measure magnetic fields?

Because a magnetic field is a vector quantity, there are two aspects we need
to measure to describe it; the strength and direction.

The direction is easy to measure. We can use a magnetic compass which lines
up with the field. Magnetic compasses have been used for navigation (using
the earth's magnetic field) since the 11ᵗʰ century.

Interestingly, measuring the strength is considerably more difficult.

Practical magnetometers only came available in the 19ᵗʰ century. Most of
these magnetometers work by exploiting the force an electron feels as it
moves through a magnetic field.

Very accurate measurement of small magnetic fields has only been practical
since the discovery in 1988 of giant magnetoresistance in specially layered
materials. This discovery in fundamental physics was quickly applied to the
magnetic hard-disk technology used for storing data in computers. This lead
to a thousand-fold increase in data storage capacity in just a few years
immediately following the implementation of the technology (0.1 to
100 \mathrm{Gbit/inch^2}Gbit/inch2 between 1991 and 2003 [2]). In 2007
Albert Fert and Peter Grünberg were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for
this discovery.

In the SI system, the magnetic field is measured in tesla

(symbol \mathrm{T}T, named after Nikola Tesla). The Tesla is defined in
terms of how much force is applied to a moving charge due to the field. A
small refrigerator magnet produces a field of
around 0.001~\mathrm{T}0.001 T and the earth's field is about 5\cdot 10^{-
5}~\mathrm{T}5⋅10−5 T. An alternative measurement is also often used, the
Gauss (symbol \mathrm{G}G). There is a simple conversion
factor, 1~\mathrm{T} = 10^4~\mathrm{G}1 T=104 G. Gauss is often used
because 1 Tesla is a very large field.

In equations the magnitude of the magnetic field is given the symbol BBB.

You may also see a quantity called the magnetic field strength which is given
the symbol HHH. Both BBB and HHH have the same units, but HHH takes
into account the effect of magnetic fields being concentrated by magnetic
materials. For simple problems taking place in air you won't need to worry
about this distinction.

What is the origin of the magnetic field?

Magnetic fields occur whenever charge is in motion. As more charge is put

in more motion, the strength of a magnetic field increases.

Magnetism and magnetic fields are one aspect of the electromagnetic force,
one of the four fundamental forces of nature.
 There are two basic ways which we can arrange for charge to be in motion
and generate a useful magnetic field:

1. We make a current flow through a wire, for example by connecting it to

a battery. As we increase the current (amount of charge in motion) the field
increases proportionally. As we move further away from the wire, the field
we see drops off proportionally with the distance. This is described
by Ampere's law. Simplified to tell us the magnetic field at a
distance rrr from a long straight wire carrying current III the equation is
B = \frac{\mu_0 I}{2 \pi r}B=2πrμ0IB, equals, start fraction, mu, start
subscript, 0, end subscript, I, divided by, 2, pi, r, end fraction

Here \mu_0μ0mu, start subscript, 0, end subscript is a special constant known

as the permeability of free space. \mu_0 = 4\pi\cdot 10^{-7}~\mathrm{T\cdot
m / A}μ0=4π⋅10−7 T⋅m/A. Some materials have the ability to concentrate
magnetic fields, this is described by those materials having
higher permeability.

Since the magnetic field is a vector, we also need to know the direction.
For conventional current flowing through a straight wire this can be found
by the right-hand-grip-rule. To use this rule imagine gripping your right hand
around the wire with your thumb pointing in the direction of the current. The
fingers show the direction of the magnetic field which wraps around the
wire. 
[Explain]

Right-hand-grip rule used to find the direction of the magnetic field (B) based
on the direction of a current (I). [3]
Figure 4: Right-hand-grip rule used to find the direction of the magnetic field (B) based on the direction of a
current (I). [3]
2. We can exploit the fact that electrons (which are charged) appear 
[explain appear]

to have some motion around the nuclei of atoms. This is how permanent
magnets work. As we know from experience, only some 'special' materials
can be made into magnets and some magnets are much stronger than others.
So some specific conditions must be required:

o Although atoms often have many electrons, they mostly 'pair up'
in such a way that the overall magnetic field of a pair cancels out. Two
electrons paired in this way are said to have opposite spin. So if we want
something to be magnetic we need atoms that have one or more unpaired
electrons with the same spin. Iron for example is a 'special' material that has
four such electrons and therefore is good for making magnets out of. 
[Explain 'pairing up']

o Even a tiny piece of material contains billions of atoms. If they

are all randomly orientated the overall field will cancel out, regardless of how
many unpaired electrons the material has. The material has to be stable
enough at room temperature to allow an overall preferred orientation to be
established. If established permanently then we have a permanent magnet,
also known as a ferromagnet.
o Some materials can only become sufficiently well ordered to be
magnetic when in the presence of an external magnetic field. The external
field serves to line all the electron spins up, but this alignment disappears
once the external field is removed. These kinds of materials are known
as paramagnetic.
The metal of a refrigerator door is an example of a paramagnet. The
refrigerator door itself is not magnetic, but behaves like a magnet when a
refrigerator magnet is placed on it. Both then attract each other strongly
enough to easily keep in place a shopping list, sandwiched between the two.
Canceling the field of the earth

Figure 5 shows a setup in which a compass is placed near a vertical wire.

When no current is flowing in the wire the compass points north as shown
due to the earth's field (assume the field of the earth is 5\cdot 10^{-
5}~\mathrm{T}5⋅10−5 T).