Demagnetizing field 2026-10-14
The demagnetizing field is the contribution to magnetic field intensity produced by the sample's own magnetization. Inside a uniformly magnetized ellipsoid, it is uniform and has the form ; the demagnetizing factor along a principal axis gives its longitudinal component. These conditions make the scalar correction in field conventions for magnetic susceptibility useful.
A cylinder generally has spatially varying magnetization and demagnetizing field. A volume-sensitive instrument and a short central pickup coil consequently need different effective corrections: one averages over the sample, while the other samples central flux. A shape factor copied from an ellipsoid is not an exact correction for every cylinder, especially with nonlinear response or hysteresis. [ref]