Magnet
Rare earth (lanthanoid) elements have a partially occupied "f" electron shell (which can accommodate up to 14 electrons). The spin of these electrons can be aligned, resulting in very strong magnetic fields, and therefore, these elements are used in compact high-strength magnets where their higher price is not a concern. The most common types of rare-earth magnets are samarium-cobalt and neodymium-iron-boron (NIB) magnets.
Weiss magneton
The idea of elementary magnets originated from the Swiss physicist Walther Ritz, who tried to explain atomic spectra. In 1907 he suggested that atoms might contain chains of magnetized and neutral rods, which were the cause of magnetic properties of materials. Just like elementary charges, this was supposed to give rise to discrete values of the total magnetic moment per atom. In 1909, Weiss performed measurements of the saturation magnetization at the temperature of liquid hydrogen in the laboratory of Heike Kamerlingh Onnes in Leiden. In 1911, Weiss announced that the molar moments of nickel and iron had the ratio of 3:11, from which he derived the value of a magneton.