Thermomagnetically patterned magnets and method of making same

摘要

A permanent magnet is heated in a pattern by a laser beam to a localized temperature above the Curie point or a temperature sufficient to reduce the magnet coercivity sufficiently for the field of the magnet or an external field to remagnetize the pattern in the reverse direction. Magnets so produced can have very high pole density, digital encoding and analog patterns having gradually varying local field strength.