The materials field guide
Choose an ingredient. Follow its physical forms, find its origins, and see what it contributes to a machine that moves.
01 / Place, process & control
Explore extraction, separation, metal and master-alloy conversion, magnet making and U.S. connections. Select a place or an evidence path to see the product and the gaps. This is a documented sample, not a global facility census.
Each layer answers a different question. Reserves are a geological stock; plant pins and supply relationships describe selected activities.
Total rare-earth reserves, in tonnes of rare-earth-oxide equivalent. Not separate NdPr, Dy or Tb reserves.
Selected manufacturing sites are application context. A motor, vehicle or generator plant does not establish its magnet supplier, magnet consumption or customer qualification.
Loading verified locations…
Equal-width lines show evidence relationships, not tonnes or transport itineraries. Hollow markers denote development or display-only regions. Approximate coordinates and missing links are explained for each place.
Turn this evidence fragment into a separate, explicitly assumed disruption experiment. Map locations do not calibrate capacity, yield, inventory or delivery.
Explore the supply-chain laboratory02 / Read a magnet grade
N35 and N52 describe energy-product classes. H, SH and UH indicate higher coercivity classes. Temperature, shape and the opposing field determine suitability.
Dy and Tb help the magnet resist demagnetization. They do not automatically raise its maximum energy product. Grain-boundary diffusion can concentrate these costly ingredients near grain surfaces, rather than adding them throughout the magnet.
Shin-Etsu process explanation03 / 配方 · alloy formulation
Start with the purchased forms, then compare two published specimens and see how their elements enter an ideal batch.
04 / Twenty years of price evidence
2006–2025 · nominal prices. Select a material to inspect its actual traded form. Benchmark changes and missing observations remain visible.
A monthly lens
05 / Meet the physical inputs
Supplier product references connect material names to feedstocks. Product identity and assay require the cited specification.
Trace the product name
A mine location tells you where extraction happens. A factory quotation tells you which chemical form, composition and delivery terms are being bought.
Supplier product references are credited to their original pages. Original publisher rights are retained.