Shin-Etsu engineers are assembling a Halbach array. It’s an arrangement of magnets intended to concentrate their field or flux in one area and lessen it in others. The company says it will use a similar 9.5-ton design mostly for production of magnetoresistance sensors for use in magnetoresistance random access memories and encoders for position detection.

Rare-earth oxides are the principal materials of high-performance permanent magnets. Shin-Etsu, Lombard, Ill, has a unified production system, meaning it handles all steps from separation and refinement of the rare earth elements, right up to production of the magnets. The company says it supplies a range of magnets and offers support in terms of development and application of magnetic circuits. Rare-earth magnets contribute to production of electronic goods that are smaller, lighter, and consume less energy than previous designs. The magnets are also an important part of clean energy applications, such as motors in wind turbines and hybrid vehicles.

Dipole-ring magnetic circuits generate uniform and strong magnetic fields in a specific direction. A magnetic field is uniform to within 3 to 6% in the ID in the radial direction on the ID side of the magnetic circuit. A skew angle, one that expresses the direction of the magnetic field, 1°or less.