Magnets generally refer to permanent magnet materials and can be divided into three categories: rare earth permanent magnets, alloy permanent magnets, and ferrite permanent magnets.

Rare earth permanent magnets include neodymium iron boron (NdFeB) and samarium cobalt. Samarium cobalt can be divided into two types, SmCo5 and Sm2Co17. It is named after rare earth elements (lanthanum and cerium) and is mainly produced by powder metallurgy sintering.

The alloy permanent magnets include aluminum nickel cobalt, iron chromium cobalt, etc., and such permanent magnet materials are also called magnetic steels, and are generally manufactured by casting or rolling.

Ferrite permanent magnets are common so-called magnets and are non-metallic materials. It is produced by sintering a mixture of other materials using iron oxide.

Rubber magnet is a kind of ferrite magnetic material series. It is made of bonded ferrite magnetic powder and synthetic rubber. It is made of soft, elastic and twistable by extrusion, calendering and injection molding. It can be processed into strips, rolls, sheets, blocks, rings and various complex shapes.

The ancient compass was made of ore in magnetite. It belongs to the natural ferrite permanent magnet material, which is magnetic after long-term magnetization under the action of the earth's magnetic field.

There are also injection-molded magnet , bonded magnet and electromagnets (solenoids) in Industry using.