Magnetic Permeability is a value that expresses how a magnetic material responds

to an applied magnetic field.

If a material's internal dipoles become easily oriented to an applied magnetic field,
that material is regarded as being a high-permeability material. If the material's
internal dipoles do not become easily oriented to an applied magnetic field, it is a
low-permeability magnetic material.
Magnetic Permeability is simply the ability of the material to form an internal magnetic field
within itself under the influence of an applied magnetic field.

Another way to understand it is that Permeability is the ability of a material to become

magnetized when exposed to a magnetic field.

But there's an even easier way to think of permeability. If you ask the question, "How easily
does the material become magnetized?", the answer has to do with the permeability of the
material. The easier it is magnetized, the more permeable it is. Keep in mind that "ease of
magnetization" is different from "strength of magnetization" because most materials that
become easily magnetized are not strong magnets.
The assumption is that you are trying to magnetize a material that is practical for magnetic
purposes. We could talk about the magnetic permeability of air, or of a vacuum. The
permeability of air or vacuum can be measured. The permeability is very low, since air and
vacuum don't have much mass. However, the permeability of hard magnetic materials is also
low, and there is plenty of mass. So then, what accounts for the difference? That will be
explained below in the Permeability of Hard Magnetic Materials section.

Let's try to understand permeability better. When we create a magnetic field with an
electromagnetic coil, we have a choice to make regarding the core that goes inside the coil. If
the core is made of air- or even a vacuum- there isn't much material there to become
magnetized.

Permeability of Soft Magnetic Materials

If you make the core out of a soft magnetic material like silicon steel, it is easy to magnetize,
so silicon steels are regarded as very permeable. In fact, many electromagnets and solenoids
have cores made of iron or silicon steel, precisely because these materials are so permeable.

Here is a short list of soft magnetic materials:

Iron
Low-carbon steel
Silicon steel
Iron-aluminum-silicon alloys
Nickel-iron alloys
Iron-cobalt alloys
Ferrites, and amorphous alloys.

But that's not the whole story. The permeability equation is as follows:
 µ = B/H

Where:

µ = permeability
B = Flux Density, measured in Teslas or Gauss
H = Magnetizing Force, measured in Oersteds

So we can see that permeability is the flux density divided by the magnetizing force. This
means that if the Flux Density is high and the Magnetizing Force is low, the Permeability is
low. If the Flux Density is low and the Magnetizing Force is high, then the Permeability is
high.

While we're on the subject, iron and silicon steels also have low Remanence and
low Coercivity, additional factors that make them great core materials. They magnetize
easily (low Coercivity) and then demagnetize easily (Low Remanence) in part because they
are permeable. Also, the silicon addition to silicon steels reduces eddy currents and improves
the long-term stability of the steel so its characteristics remain the same for a long time.

Permeability of Hard Magnetic Materials

NdFeB rare earth magnets -for example-have very low permeability, because they have
strong magnetic dipoles that resist an external magnetic field. This means that these magnets
strongly resist external magnetic fields, which means that they will not easily re-orient their
domains while under the influence of an external magnetic field.

NdFeB magnets also have a high coercive force (Coercivity) which makes it difficult to
demagnetize them.

It is typical then for low-permeability materials to be used as permanent magnets, and for
high-permeability materials to be used as soft magnetic materials. If we look at Figure 1
(below) we see typical hysteresis curves for both hard- and soft magnetic materials.
Here is a short list of hard magnetic materials:

NdFeB (Neodymium)
SmCo (Samarium Cobalt)
Ferrite
Alnico (Aluminum, Nickel, Cobalt Alloy)

B-H Curve of Magnetic Material. As we follow the letters from a through g we generate important

magnetic data about the material that helps us understand the material's magnetic properties.

Permeability and the Hysteresis Loop

We can learn a lot about permeability of a material just by looking at the hysteresis loop.
Generally, a highly permeable material will have a tall, narrow hysteresis loop, while a low
permeability material will have a wider hysteresis loop.

The shape of the hysteresis loop is governed by a variety of factors that influence the
material's magnetic characteristics. A magnetic material with a narrow hysteresis loop
generally has higher permeability while a material with a wider hysteresis loop will have
lower permeability.
But a number of additional factors influence a material's hysteresis loop and identify that
material's magnetic characteristics. For example, materials with a wider hysteresis loop
generally exhibit the following properties:
 Higher Remanence (Residual Magnetism)
 Lower Permeability

 Higher Retentivity

 Higher Coercive Force (Coercivity)

 Higher Reluctance

Materials with a thinner hysteresis loop have:

 Lower Remanence (Residual Magnetism)

 Higher Permeability

 Lower Retentivity

 Lower Coercive Force (Coercivity)

 Lower Reluctance

Why Do We Care About Magnetic Permeability?

A non-permeable material (think of air or even a vacuum) will allow magnetic field lines to
enter it's space. It has virtually no effect on its surroundings. It does not store any energy. A
hard magnetic permeable material will not allow external field lines to enter its domain. Hard
magnets have very strongly oriented dipoles that do not easily change their orientation, while
soft magnets will more easily change their orientation in the presence of an applied field.

Permeability of Selected Materials

If we view the relative permeability values of a few materials, we can make some fascinating
observations. Some materials that seem very similar actually have very different
permeability values. Highly purified iron, for example, has the highest permeability on the
chart, and it's permeability is 50X's that of electrical steel. At the other end of the spectrum is
Neodymium (actually Nd2Fe14B) magnets. It's interesting to note that the Relative
Permeability of Neodymium magnets -at 1.05- is very similar to the Relative Permeability of
air at 1.00.

Relative Permeability of Selected Materials

Relative Permeability of Selected Materials. It's surprising to note that the permeability of an NdFeB

Magnet is similar to air until we consider what is happening with the diples.

Let's Talk About Dipoles

How can we best understand these Relative Permeability values? Remember that
permeability is the ability of the material to form an internal magnetic field within itself
under the influence of an applied magnetic field. So materials that can easily orient their
dipoles in the presence of an external magnetic field are permeable, and materials that do not
easily orient their dipoles are not so permeable.

Pure iron (a soft magnetic material) re-orients it's dipoles easily in the presence of a magnetic
field, but a Neodymium magnet maintains those dipoles in their orientation even under the
influence of a strong external magnetic field.

What's even more interesting is that the permeability of a Neodymium magnet is very close to
the permeability of air. So we have to ask the question -"How can the permeability of a
dense permanent magnet material be so close to air -where there is so little mass?"

The answer to this question comes back to our earlier premise about how materials orient
their dipoles. Neodymium magnets do not easily re-orient their dipoles in the presence of an
applied magnetic field. Air -since there is so little mass- does not have many dipoles to
orient.

So we can see that the reason Neodymium magnets have nearly the same Permeability as air
is that while Neodymium magnets have a lot more dipoles than air, they only allow a very
small amount of those dipoles to align to an external magnetic field. The result is that
Neodymium magnets have virtually the same Permeability as air.

Magnetic Reluctance
Magnetic Reluctance is the opposite of Magnetic Permeability. We can think of it as
magnetic resistance. Materials that are highly permeable will have low reluctance.
Conversely, materials with low permeability will generally have low reluctance.

Magnetic polarization
Magnetic polarization is a physical quantity. It relates to the electrodynamics of macroscopic
matter and characterizes the magnetic flux density of a magnetic material in a vacuum
when the proportion of the magnetic field is subtracted.
Inside the ferromagnet

Ferromagnetic materials consist of many small elementary magnets, also called magnetic
moments. They are largely responsible for the magnetization of a material. If they specify a
direction of magnetization, one speaks of magnetic polarization. If two magnets differ by
opposite north and south poles, this is called reverse polarization.

The symbol of magnetic polarization is J, the associated Unit T (Tesla). Magnetic polarization
occurs when an external magnetic field is applied to a material with elementary magnets.
Because the magnetic moments then add up, the external magnetic field H0 becomes
around the magnetic field constant μ reinforced (corresponds to the magnetic permeability).
A magnetic flux density B, which is μ larger than in a vacuum, i.e.

Ferromagnets increase the magnetic flux density. In the external magnetic field, the
magnetic polarization is now due to the susceptibility χ determined:

How can magnetic polarization be measured?

If current flows through a coil and an iron core with a permeability greater than 1 is
integrated into its interior, the magnetic flux density at the end of the coil is significantly
higher than without an iron core. This is because the spins of the ferromagnetic material
align themselves parallel to the external magnetic field. Due to the magnetic polarization,
the magnetic flux is considerably larger - the magnetic field becomes stronger.

Because the magnetic moments of ferromagnets have a permanent alignment (due to

the exchange interaction), so-called remanence occurs after switching off the external
magnetic field, i.e. some of the magnetic polarization remains.