A study has been made to determine how the properties of magnetic film
s are influenced by the triboelectric fields accompanying the polishin
g of articles with fur and results are presented. For insulating films
of bismuth-containing, iron garnet an increase in the coercivity was
observed, evidently caused by the electromagnetic effect, in spite of
reduced defects in the crystal structure. (C) 1998 American Institute
of Physics. [S1063-7850(98)01401-3].