Magnetoresistive Sensors for Surface Scanning

Influence of the NiFe/Cu/NiFe Structure Dimensions and Position in External Magnetic Field on Resistance Changes under the Magnetoresistance Effect

The subject of this work is NiFe/Cu/NiFe thin-film structures made by magnetron sputtering and showing the phenomenon of magnetoresistance. Three series of samples differing in spatial dimensions and thickness of the Cu spacer were produced. During the sputtering process, an external magnetic field of approx. 10 mT was applied to the substrate. Measurements of the resistance of the structures were carried out in the field of neodymium magnets in three different positions of the sample in relation to the direction of the field. The measurements allowed us to indicate in which position the structures of different series achieved the greatest changes in resistance. For each of the three series of layer systems, the nature of changes in the determined coefficient of giant magnetoresistance ΔR/R remained similar, while for the series with the smallest copper thickness (2.5 nm), the coefficient reached the highest value of about 2.7‱. In addition, impedance measurements were made for the structures of each series in the frequency range from 100 Hz to 100 kHz. For series with a thinner copper layer, a decrease in impedance values was observed in the 10-100 kHz range.

Reconstruction of magnetic source images using the Wiener filter and a multichannel magnetic imaging system

A system for imaging magnetic surfaces using a magnetoresistive sensor array is developed. The experimental setup is composed of a linear array of 12 sensors uniformly spaced, with sensitivity of 150 pT*Hz(-1/2) at 1 Hz, and it is able to scan an area of (16 × 18) cm(2) from a separation of 0.8 cm of the sources with a resolution of 0.3 cm. Moreover, the point spread function of the multi-sensor system is also studied, in order to characterize its transference function and to improve the quality in the restoration of images. Furthermore, the images are generated by mapping the response of the sensors due to the presence of phantoms constructed of iron oxide, which are magnetized by a pulse of 80 mT. The magnetized phantoms are linearly scanned through the sensor array and the remanent magnetic field is acquired and displayed in gray levels using a PC. The images of the magnetic sources are reconstructed using two-dimensional generalized parametric Wiener filtering. Our results exhibit a very good capability to determine the spatial distribution of magnetic field sources, which produce magnetic fields of low intensity.