Glossary
The working vocabulary.
Every term this site (and the vendor literature) leans on, in plain engineering English.
- maxel
- a magnetic pixel — one small printed N or S region, roughly 1–4 mm, the unit a pattern is built from.
- magnetic code
- the designed arrangement of maxels on a face; the code determines the force function.
- correlation
- the mathematics of how two coded faces interact — force tracks the spatial correlation of their codes, peaking at exact alignment like a matched filter.
- correlated magnetics
- CMR's name for the discipline: applying signal-processing code design (from UWB radar) to magnetization patterns.
- field emission structure
- the patents' term for a coded magnetic surface (see cornerstone patent US 7,800,471).
- spatial force function
- the engineered force-versus-position curve of a coded pair — the thing that becomes a design variable.
- multipole
- any magnet with more than one pole pair on a face — from simple alternating fridge strips and ABS encoder rings to fully coded surfaces.
- Halbach array
- a periodic rotating-magnetization arrangement that concentrates flux on one side; motors, MRI, maglev. Engineered magnetization's older sibling (Mallinson 1973, Halbach 1980s).
- near field / far field
- close to a patterned face the field is intense; it decays exponentially (F ∝ e^(−2πz/λ), λ = pole pitch) so the far field can be engineered toward zero.
- Polymagnet®
- CMR's product brand for coded magnets.
- MagPrinter
- CMR's magnetizing printer — a computer-controlled head writing ~1 mm maxels with ~0.8 ms pulses; first shipped 2013.
- Barker code
- a short binary sequence with minimal autocorrelation sidelobes, borrowed from radar; used in the patents to give magnet pairs sharp, unambiguous alignment force.
- spring / latch / align / twist-release / attach / shear / torque / detent
- CMR's catalog behaviors — see the behavior explorer for each mechanism and its numbers.
- Earnshaw's theorem
- no arrangement of static magnets can stably levitate — why every magnetic-spring demo runs on a constraining pin.
- energy product (MGOe)
- the figure of merit for magnet material strength; NdFeB tops out around 52 MGOe. Coding redistributes this energy; it cannot add to it.
- electropermanent magnet
- a magnet switched on/off by a current pulse but requiring no power to hold — 'programmable in time' (Magswitch and peers), versus coded magnets' 'programmable in space.'
- poka-yoke
- error-proofing; in magnetics, keyed coded pairs that physically refuse wrong assembly.
- MR-Conditional
- a device demonstrated safe in MRI under stated conditions — what rotatable implant magnet design achieved for cochlear implants.
Mechanism-level definitions with diagrams live at the companion encyclopedia, multipolemag.com.