Britannica Sources used in this answer

How does heating a permanent magnet weaken or destroy its magnetism?

Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

Understand how the concept of touch changes with the presence of electrons between two objects — electromagnetism Learn how the presence of electrons between two objects changes the notion of touch.

Heating a permanent magnet weakens or destroys its magnetism because thermal energy disrupts the orderly alignment of the material's atomic magnetic moments.12

In ferromagnetic materials, atoms act as tiny magnets that spontaneously align in the same direction within microscopic regions called domains, creating a strong, macroscopic magnetic field. This alignment is maintained by quantum mechanical exchange forces that overcome the natural tendency of thermal agitation to randomize the orientation of these atomic magnets.1234

As the temperature of the magnet increases, the thermal energy within the material grows. When the temperature reaches a specific threshold known as the Curie point, the thermal energy becomes sufficient to overcome the internal aligning forces. At this point, the spontaneous alignment of the domains vanishes, and the material loses its permanent magnetism, transitioning into a state of paramagnetism, where it exhibits only weak magnetic behavior. If the material is subsequently cooled below its Curie point, the atomic magnets can spontaneously realign, and its ferromagnetic properties are restored.124