Question: How is Neodymium used in Computers?

Ian Stephenson answered on 24 Jun 2014:

Neodymium isn’t that important for making computers, as its a kind of metal, which would conduct electricity, but we have lots of cheaper materials which are better conductors. The “important” components in a computer are the semi-conductors which, as their name suggests, can conduct sometimes, and not conduct (insulate) otherwise.

Semi-conductors are based around group-4 elements: the ones smack in the middle column of the periodic table. Germanium, silicon and potentially carbon (though crystals of carbon expensive, and tricky to work). Gallium Arsenide combines a group3 with a group 5 element to create something that behaves like a group 4. The thing about these is they can form nice regular crystals, and with a few tricks (doping) you can get them to act as either a conductor or insulator, on demand… effectively making a switch, from which you can build more complex circuits.

Neodymium’s main use is is in super strong magnets. Because they’re so strong you need less material to get the same effect which makes them lighter. This is handy if you’re making powerful audio speakers, as instead of having a big heavy iron magnet you can have a much ligher neodymium magnet with the same power. I’ve got a “neo” guitar speaker I use, and its MUCH easier to take to gigs than a regular speaker (though neodymium does have the property that it looses its magnetism pretty quickly if it gets too hot, so you have to be careful not to over power them).