Permanent Magnets Permanent magnets are those that keep their magnetic properties in the absence of an external field. They occur in nature as lodestones. Magnets are made by applying an external magnetic field to the substance to be magnetized. This causes the magnetic field generating elements of the substance to align within the external field. When this field is removed, these elements remain aligned rather than returning to a random distribution. The elements that align are called magnetic domains. These are magnetic regions within the substance whose constituent elements are so distributed so as to produce a vector sum magnetic field which is greater than zero. Before alignment the vector sum of all domains is equal to zero. After alignment it is greater than zero. In this process the elements of each domain act as a group. This allows for even further alignment within each domain. If the domains could be broken down into their basic elements, more powerful permanent magnets could be created with the application of the same on a lesser amount of external energy. Some methods of preprocessing these substances include heat, pressure, electromagnetism, and high energy photons. Such preprocessing might be able to break down the domain into smaller sets.