What is paramagnetism?
1 Answer
Jul 6, 2017
Weak attraction to magnetic fields caused by the presence of unpaired electron spins.
Explanation:
Unlike paired electrons, whose spins effectively "cancel each other out" in polarity terms, unpaired electrons exhibit a net dipole moment and therefore behave a bit like miniature magnets.
So in the presence of a magnetic field they tend to align parrellel to it, which results in an overall attraction to the field.
That's it in simple terms.
Oxygen is an example of a paramagnetic element, as is gold, aluminium and titanium. Iron (II) oxide (FeO) is also paramagnetic.
