The 20th century saw rapid and dramatic improvements in permanent magnet materials. It has been 31 years since the discovery of neodymium-iron-boron and numerous companies and laboratories are seeking to produce a new and superior material. Topics discussed herein are material options, economics of selected materials and market drivers in material selection. Market issues include manufacturability by shape, size, and material yield; raw material supply including cost and dependability of the supply chain; raw material and magnet product price stability; development of applications based on commercial needs, government legislation and consumer demand. “Need is the mother of invention” and no discussion would be complete without covering why a new material would be beneficial from an applications point of view especially in energy production and consumption. Therefore, an introduction will be provided for select, major applications using permanent magnets and the growth forecasts for these.

We propose a novel concept of optical detection of thermal neutrons in a passive device that exploits transmutation of Dy-164, a dominant, naturally occurring isotope of dysprosium, into a stable isotope of either holmium Ho-165 or erbium Er-166. Combination of the high thermal neutron capture cross section of ~2,650 barns and transmutation into two other lanthanides makes Dy-164 a very attractive alternative to traditional methods of neutron detection that will be completely insensitive to gamma irradiation, thus reducing greatly the likelihood of false alarms. The optically enabled neutron detection relies on significant differences in optical properties of Dy, Ho, and Er that are not sensitive to a particular isotope, but change considerably from one element to another. While the concept applies equally well to bulk materials and to nanocrystals, nanocrystalline approach is much more attractive due to its significantly lower cost, relative ease of colloidal synthesis of high quality nanocrystals (NCs), and superior optical and mechanical properties of NCs compared to their bulk counterparts. We report on colloidal synthesis of DyF3 NCs, both doped and undoped with Ho and co-doped with Ce and Eu to enhance their optical properties. We also report on DyF3:10%Ce and DyF3:10%Eu NCs irradiated with thermal neutrons from a Cf-252 source and their optical characterization.