Condensed matter physics |
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Phase phenomena |
Electronic phenomena |
Metamagnetism is a sudden (often, dramatic) increase in themagnetization of a material with a small change in an externally appliedmagnetic field. The metamagnetic behavior may have quite different physical causes for different types of metamagnets. Some examples of physical mechanisms leading to metamagnetic behavior are:
Depending on the material and experimental conditions, metamagnetism may be associated with a first-orderphase transition, acontinuous phase transition at acritical point (classical or quantum), or crossovers beyond a critical point that do not involve a phase transition at all. These wildly different physical explanations sometimes lead to confusion as to what the term "metamagnetic" is referring in specific cases.