What Is IEEE Transactions on Magnetics?

IEEE Transactions on Magnetics is a peer-reviewed monthly journal published by the IEEE Magnetics Society that covers the basic physics of magnetism, magnetic materials, applied magnetics, and magnetic devices, including data storage technologies. The journal addresses the continuum from fundamental research on magnetic phenomena at the atomic and nanoscale through to the engineering of devices that exploit magnetic properties in computing, energy conversion, sensing, and medical applications. First published in 1965 as the journal of the newly established IEEE Magnetics Group, the publication has operated for more than six decades and has grown to publish approximately 4,000 pages per year. It is among the four most frequently downloaded IEEE periodicals on IEEE Xplore, with over 800,000 annual electronic accesses.

Magnetic Materials and Fundamental Physics

A foundational area of the journal is the study of magnetic materials: their electronic structure, spin ordering, domain behavior, and response to applied fields. Research covers ferromagnetic, ferrimagnetic, antiferromagnetic, and paramagnetic materials, as well as the exchange interactions and anisotropy energies that determine which ordering a given material adopts. Papers examine hard magnetic materials used in permanent magnets, soft magnetic materials used in transformer cores and actuators, and thin-film multilayer structures that exhibit giant magnetoresistance (GMR) and tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR). The discovery of GMR in 1988, recognized by the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics, led to a generation of TMR-based read heads in hard disk drives that the journal documented extensively. Work on ferrite materials, amorphous magnetic alloys, and rare-earth permanent magnet systems such as neodymium-iron-boron is a continuing presence in the publication. The IEEE Magnetics Society oversees the journal and describes its scope as covering scholarly articles of archival value alongside tutorial reviews.

Magnetic Recording and Data Storage

The journal has historically been closely associated with the physics and engineering of magnetic data storage, covering the signal-to-noise tradeoffs in longitudinal and perpendicular magnetic recording, the design of recording media with high coercivity and narrow switching field distributions, and the development of read and write head geometries suited to progressively smaller bit dimensions. Research on heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), which uses a laser to locally heat the recording medium above its Curie temperature to enable writing at areal densities beyond those achievable by conventional write fields, has been a sustained topic as the storage industry has pushed toward densities measured in terabits per square inch. The journal also covers solid-state magnetic memory technologies, including spin-transfer-torque magnetic random-access memory (STT-MRAM), which stores data in the orientation of magnetic tunnel junction elements rather than in charge. The publication archive is accessible through IEEE Xplore's Transactions on Magnetics collection.

Applied Magnetics and Devices

Beyond storage, the journal covers the engineering of magnetic devices for power conversion, sensing, and actuation. Research in this sub-area addresses the design of electric motors and generators with optimized magnetic circuits, inductive components for switched-mode power supplies, and magnetic field sensors used in navigation, current measurement, and non-destructive evaluation. Work on superconducting magnets for MRI systems and particle accelerators, including the optimization of persistent current windings and quench protection circuits, represents a specialized but consistently published sub-area. Papers on magnetostrictive actuators, which convert magnetic field changes to mechanical displacement, and on magnetic levitation systems also appear in the journal. The NIST Center for Neutron Research provides characterization capabilities for magnetic materials that underpin much of the experimental work reported in the journal.

Applications

IEEE Transactions on Magnetics covers research with applications across a broad range of technical domains, including:

• Hard disk drives and magnetic tape systems for data storage
• Electric motors, generators, and inductors for power conversion
• MRI systems using superconducting and permanent magnets
• Magnetic field sensors for navigation and industrial inspection
• Spintronics-based memory and logic devices