The World’s Strongest Permanent Magnet

In this special episode, we speak to 2022 QEPrize winner, Dr Masato Sagawa, who received the award in recognition for his work in the discovery, development and global commercialisation of the world’s most powerful permanent magnet— the sintered neodymium-iron-boron (Nd-Fe-B) magnet.

Dr Sagawa’s innovation has been transformational in its contribution to multiple applications globally, including: medical imaging; electric vehicles; wind turbines; audio systems; spacecraft; robots and computers.

Sagawa’s breakthrough was the creation of a new compound formed by replacing the scarce and expensive elements used in previous permanent magnets, with more abundant and cheaper elements—iron and neodymium. By introducing boron and dysprosium to improve the magnetic properties and heat resistance, the resulting material was a new high-performance magnet ready for the mass market that almost doubled the performance of the previous best and successfully turned Nd-Fe-B magnets into a viable industrial material with countless applications.

To learn more about the 2022 QEPrize winning innovation, visit https://qeprize.org/winners/the-worlds-strongest-permanent-magnet

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Interpretation provided by Yosuke Shinokubo.

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