The permanent magnet utilized in TAKUMI, the handheld magnetic probe developed by Matrix Cell Research Institute Inc. to locate sentinel lymph nodes during breast cancer lumpectomy, provides many benefits, but what is a “permanent magnet”?
Permanent magnetism was first discovered in Ancient Greece in 600 BC and is thus far older than Ampere’s law, which was established in 1820. However, it required 20th century science – more specifically: quantum physics – to fundamentally understand the mechanism behind permanent magnetism.
Unlike electromagnets, which are made from a coil of wire wrapped around a ferrous core and require an electric current to generate a magnetic field, a permanent magnet’s persistent magnetic field is created by the material’s own internal atomic structure. Simply put, the magnet is always “on”, independent of a power source.
Since permanent magnetism is the current hot topic of both the science and the engineering world, Matrix Cell Research Institute Inc. are applying state-of-the-art science by utilizing a permanent magnet in TAKUMI.