Why isn’t stainless steel attracted to a magnet? Stainless steel contains a high amount of iron. Isn’t that enough to make it attracted to a magnet?
In: Chemistry
>Fundamentally, the reasons why ferritic stainless steels are ferromagnetic while austenitic stainless steels are not are quantum-mechanical in nature. Suffice it to say a ferromagnetic metal consists of atoms that have an incomplete inner core of electrons and a crystal structure that results in a high density of electron states in the energy bands formed from the incomplete atomic inner core. It also has an atomic spacing that allows for exchange effects among electrons in the energy bands associated with the incomplete inner-core level. If the atoms in the metal crystal are too widely spaced, the exchange effects are too small to cause alignment of the magnetic moments of neighboring atoms and the crystal will not exhibit ferromagnetism. The requirement of a high density of states stems from the Pauli Exclusion Principle. This principle prohibits electrons with the same spin from occupying the same energy level. Consequently, if the density of electron states is relatively small, electrons will need to occupy higher energy states in order for all to have the same spin. If the increase in energy resulting from the occupancy of higher energy levels exceeds the decrease in energy resulting from electron exchange energy, the structure will not be ferromagnetic.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-dont-magnets-work-on/
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