New permanent magnets; manganese compounds.

The exponential growth of maximum energy product that prevailed in the 20th century has stalled, leaving a market dominated by two permanent magnet materials, Nd2Fe14B and Ba(Sr)Fe12O19, for which the maximum theoretical energy products differ by an order of magnitude (515 kJ m(-3) and 45 kJ m(-3), respectively). Rather than seeking to improve on optimized Nd-Fe-B, it is suggested that some research efforts should be devoted to developing appropriately priced alternatives with energy products in the range 100-300 kJ m(-3). The prospects for Mn-based hard magnetic materials are discussed, based on known Mn-based compounds with the tetragonal L10 or D022 structure or the hexagonal B81 structure.