Advanced multipole magnets you can program to align, latch, spring and hold.
An ordinary magnet has one north and one south, so it just sticks. An advanced multipole magnet carries a precise, computer-controlled pattern of many poles across its face, so it can align, latch, spring or hold exactly the way you design it, behaviour an ordinary north-south magnet can’t give you. (You’ll also see these called coded or programmable magnets.) WholeMagnetics is the hub for the whole field: a network of focused guides to the technology, the makers and standards behind it, and the people who invented it.
The network
A family of guides to one technology.
Each site goes deep on a single angle of advanced multipole magnets, so whatever you came to understand, there is a page that starts with your question. They all point back to the people who make the technology.
Polymagnet Maker
Correlated Magnetics Research, who invented the technology and print the pole patterns.
Visit →Multipole Mag Guide
The definitive guide to coded magnets and how the pole pattern engineers behaviour.
Visit →Multipole Magnets Guide
Mechanisms without moving parts: latches, springs and detents written into the face.
Visit →CodedMag Guide
Magnets you can program to do a job, explained from the buyer’s side.
Visit →maxelmag Guide
The magnetic pixel, explained: the single poled region that everything is built from.
Visit →PolyMagnetics Distributor
Takes enquiries for custom patterns and design-ins.
Visit →FerroSpring Store
Demo magnets and kits, in stock with U.S. shipping, so you can feel the behaviour.
Visit →CodedSpring Distributor
Coded-magnet distributor for the spring and latch behaviours.
Visit →MaxelMagnets Distributor
Coded-magnet distributor, framed around the maxel pattern.
Visit →MagnetPoly Reference
The Polymagnet catalog, mirrored, for a straight product reference.
Visit →The Whole Magnetics Catalog Catalog
A Whole-Earth-style catalog of the field: the tools, the makers, the reading.
Open →The product catalog Catalog
Every magnet, sorted by what it does, with the real part behind each behaviour.
Open →Why a whole network
Why a family of sites, not one.
Coded magnets have been around for years, but the web still treats them as a footnote. The big magnet suppliers publish content to sell their parts, the encyclopedias stay technical, and a buyer asking a plain question, which magnet aligns, which one latches and lets go, lands on a patent or a product page instead of an answer.
So we didn’t build one site. We built a family of focused ones, each going deep on a single angle of the same technology. One explains the magnetic pixel. One covers mechanisms without moving parts. One is about programming a magnet to do a job. One is the behaviour-by-behaviour guide for buyers. Whatever you are trying to understand, there is a page that opens with your question and answers it in plain words.
Keeping the sites separate does two honest things. Each one can speak to a different reader without watering down the others, and together they map the whole field, the makers, the suppliers, the standards and the research, in a way no single store page could. Every one of them points back to Correlated Magnetics Research and their Polymagnet product line. We are the guide; they are the source.
We also hold to a few rules. We lead with what a magnet does for you, not the physics. We own the one real limit plainly: an advanced multipole magnet pulls the field in close, so it is remarkable on contact and a poor fit when the target is far away. And we never dress a magnet up as more than it is. That honesty is the whole point of a guide.
A magnet with a pattern printed on its face.
Ordinary magnets have one north pole and one south. A coded magnet’s face carries many small designed regions, so instead of a single dumb pull it can center itself, hold at a set force, release with a twist, or spring back through a stroke.
Thousands of tiny poles, arranged to do a job.
A maxel is a single magnetic pixel, one of the many small poled regions printed across a coded magnet’s face. Arrange enough of them and the magnet starts to behave.
Change the pattern and you change the behaviour: alignment strength, engagement distance, holding force, release torque. It is the same technology pioneered as Polymagnet by Correlated Magnetics Research.
The field
Who makes this, and who sets the standards.
The permanent-magnet vertical, mapped: the makers and brands, the suppliers behind them, and the research and standards that define the work.
Makers & brands 61
K&J Magnetics, Apex Magnets, CMS Magnetics, Applied Magnets, totalElement, SuperMagnetMan, Stanford Magnets, First4Magnets…
See allSuppliers 26
MP Materials, Lynas Rare Earths, China Northern Rare Earth, Shenghe Resources, Iluka Resources, Energy Fuels, USA Rare Earth, Arafura Rare Earths…
See allStandards & research 11
Magnetics Magazine, IEEE Magnetics Society, International Magnetics Association, Adamas Intelligence, Argus Media, Project Blue, USGS Rare Earths, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence…
See allTechnology 1
Correlated Magnetics Research (Polymagnet), the maker of the coded-magnet technology.
See allLatest from the magnet industry.
- Coded magnets do things ordinary magnets can’t. Precise alignment, latch-on-contact, a contactless spring and rotational detents are all written into the pole pattern instead of built from moving parts.
- The category traces to Correlated Magnetics Research and its maxel printing. The pattern is written onto a standard magnet blank, so the real work lives in the magnetizing fixture and the software.
- The fastest-growing uses are phone and tablet mounts that rotate and hold, smart latches and enclosures, rotational indexing, self-aligning fixtures, and tool-free service panels.
- Design software lets an engineer simulate a pole pattern and order the custom magnet it produces, bridging a magnet that behaves and a real part number.
- Buyer education is the difference. Magnetic viewing film and demo kits let someone feel align, latch, spring and hold before designing them in, which no datasheet can do.
- The magnet distribution market is unusually fragmented, with dozens of independent regional distributors and family-held makers.
Coded magnets in action.
Questions people ask.
What is a coded magnet?
A coded magnet has a designed pattern of small magnetic regions printed across its face, instead of one plain north and south pole. The behavior is written into the pattern, so the same magnet can align, latch, spring or hold.
What is a Polymagnet?
Polymagnet is the programmable-magnet product line from Correlated Magnetics Research, who invented the technology. It is a pattern printed onto a standard magnet blank, not a new magnet material.
What does the N number in a magnet grade mean?
The N is for neodymium and the number is the material’s maximum energy product in MGOe, roughly how much magnetic energy it can store. It rates the material, not the pull force of a finished part.
What is the strongest magnet you can buy?
Sintered neodymium (NdFeB) at the top commercial grades. Strongest on paper is often the wrong choice once heat or corrosion are involved, so match the grade to the conditions rather than the headline number.
Are neodymium magnets the same thing as rare earth magnets?
Neodymium magnets are one kind of rare-earth magnet, and samarium-cobalt is another. The rare earths are not geologically rare; the processing is what is concentrated in a few countries.
What's the difference between neodymium, samarium cobalt and ferrite magnets?
They differ on the four things that decide most designs: strength, heat tolerance, corrosion resistance and cost. Neodymium is strongest, samarium-cobalt handles the most heat, and ferrite is the cheapest.
What are the disadvantages of neodymium magnets?
They corrode without a coating, they are brittle and chip, they lose strength as they heat up, and their supply is exposed to trade policy. All worth knowing before you design one in.
Is there a shortage of rare earth magnets and why are prices moving?
Since 2025 China has run an export-licensing regime covering heavy rare earths, finished magnets and magnet-making equipment, and the feedstock is priced more by policy than by demand. That is the mechanism behind the price moves.
The catalog.
Browse the full catalog of advanced multipole magnets, sorted by what each one does, align, latch, spring, hold and detent, with the real part behind every behaviour.