A note on Ferromagnetism

Abstract

The purpose of this note is to amplify the discussion and conclusions of a recent paper by one of us. It has recently been shown by Webster, drawing largely from the work of Weiss and Forrer, that in single crystals of both iron and nickel there is a family of natural directions of micromagnetization defined by the observed directions of easy holomagnetization. The evidence presented by Webster is completely convincing, and we therefore may refine our picture of micromagnetization by asserting that the micro-elements are all (holo)magnetized in one or other of the directions of easy holomagnetization. These directions are the family of six directions (± 1, 0, 0) (0, ± 1, 0) (0, 0, ± 1) for iron and the family of eight directions (± 1, ± 1, ± 1) for nickel. We wish to comment on Webster's theory later in connection with the properties of cobalt.