Skip to main navigation Skip to search Skip to main content

Field Detection in Spin Valve Sensors Using CoFeB/Ru Synthetic-Antiferromagnetic Multilayers as Magnetic Flux Concentrators

  • Diana C. Leitao
  • , Luis Gameiro
  • , Ana V. Silva
  • , Susana Cardoso
  • , Paulo P. Freitas

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

This work compares the performance of spin valve sensors comprising magnetic flux concentrators (MFCs) composed of Co 93 Zr 3 Nb 4 (CZN) or (Co 70 Fe 30 ) 80 B 20 -based synthetic-antiferromagnet (SAF) multilayer stacks. In addition, the influence of a tapered MFC tip is also studied. When compared to CZN films, SAFs have the disadvantage of lower magnetic susceptibility (χ = 196 for SAF vs. χ = 753 for CZN), which affects negatively the field gain in gap (10 for SAF vs. 43 for CZN). However, from the overall noise spectrum, one can conclude that the magnetic field detections for sensors incorporating CoFeB/Ru multilayers as MFCs are close to the ones obtained with CZN, being mainly determined by the sensor intrinsic properties instead. For low frequencies, field detection levels at 10 Hz improved from ~ 61 nT/Hz 0.5 for single spin valve sensors down to ~ 1.8 nT/Hz 0.5 when CZN concentrators with a steep-profile are used.
Original languageEnglish
Article number6332591
Pages (from-to)3847-3850
Number of pages4
JournalIEEE Transactions on Magnetics
Volume48
Issue number11
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2012
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Field detection
  • magnetic flux concentrators
  • synthetic antiferromagnet

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Field Detection in Spin Valve Sensors Using CoFeB/Ru Synthetic-Antiferromagnetic Multilayers as Magnetic Flux Concentrators'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this