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New monolithic three dimensional field sensors with high sensitivity

E. HRISTOFOROU1,*

Affiliation

  1. Laboratory of Physical Metallurgy, National Technical University of Athens, Athens 15780, Greece

Abstract

In this paper, a new family of field sensors is presented, able to be integrated into a single integrated circuit, illustrating quite high sensitivity and accuracy. These sensors are based on the inductive or galvanic response of soft magnetic thin films or ribbons as sensing elements, subjected to on-plane or out-of-plane rotation of magnetization. The sensing cores are magnetized by rotating field on their surface, with amplitude significantly larger than the anisotropy field of the thin film or ribbon. Thus, they illustrate pseudo-super-paramagnetic behavior by means of circular magnetization, exhibiting no discontinuities on the magnetization rotation and therefore no magnetic noise due to absence of Barkhausen jumps. The two on plane under measurement field components may be determined by the modulation of the rotating field response, by means of phase shift and amplitude modulation of the second harmonic. Such phase shift and amplitude modulation is measured either by inductive means like on-chip Hall elements, or by galvanic techniques using on-chip VIAS connections. Absence of Barkhausen noise can result in sensitivity of the order of pT of the galvanic mode of operation, while use of Hall effect devices resulted in a sensitivity of the order of nT. These sensors may serve as single chip gyroscopes and electronic compasses for various applications like mobile telecommunications, driverless driving and precise GPS systems..

Keywords

Magnetometry, Magnetoresistance, Induction.

Submitted at: Sept. 5, 2006
Accepted at: Sept. 13, 2006

Citation

E. HRISTOFOROU, New monolithic three dimensional field sensors with high sensitivity, Journal of Optoelectronics and Advanced Materials Vol. 8, Iss. 5, pp. 1691-1697 (2006)