Physics Procedia

Volume 75, 2015, Pages 1419–1426

20th International Conference on Magnetism

Multicore Off-Diagonal Magnetoimpedance Sensors

Utilising Amorphous Wires
Nikolay A. Yudanov1, Alexander A. Rudenok1, Larissa V. Panina1,2, Alexander T.
Morchenko1, Dmitry P. Makhnovskiy3, Arkady Zhukov4
1
National University of Science and Technology (MISIS), Moscow, Russia
2
Institute for Design Problems in Microelectronics RAS, Moscow, Russia
3
The Advanced Composites Manufacturing Centre, Plymouth University, UK
4
Dpto. Física de Materiales, Facultad de Química, UPV/EHU, 1072, 20080, San Sebastián, Spain
lpanina@plymouth.ac.uk, drlpanina@gmail.com

Abstract
Magnetoimpedance (MI) sensors are attractive for realising a localised detection of weak magnetic
fields owing to micro-size and high sensitivity of the MI elements based on Co-rich amorphous wires
of diameter 10-30 microns. The MI sensors in off-diagonal configuration when the signal is taken
from the coil mounted on the wire have a number of advantages including linearity, enhanced output
voltage, and resonance detection circuitry. In this work, the off-diagonal impedance of a number of
Co-rich glass-coated amorphous wires placed in the same coil is investigated. The wires are connected
in parallel and excited by a harmonic current with optimised dc bias which is used to remove the
domain structure. The best sensitivity of about 350mV/Oe is obtained for two closely spaced wires at
the excitation frequency of 20 MHz which corresponds to the resonance conditions for the detection
circuit having only 55 turns. The full scale and linearity range are also increased almost twice in
comparison with those when only one wire is used. The response drops if the distance between the
wires is increased which is due to a strong effect of the magnetostatic interaction between the wires.
We conclude that the off-diagonal MI sensors with multiple wires can provide higher transfer function
per one turn and could be advantageous for localised field detection.

Keywords: Off-diagonal magnetoimpedance, magnetoimpedance sensor, linear sensor, amorphous magnetic wire,
bias field

1 Introduction

Magnetic sensors for detecting localised weak magnetic fields find a wide range of applications.
There is a constant demand in enhanced sensitivity, improved signal-to-noise ratio, and smaller size.

Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Scientific Programme Committee of ICM 2015 1419

c The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
doi:10.1016/j.phpro.2015.12.161
Multicore Off-Diagonal Magnetoimpedance Sensors ... N. Yudanov et al.

[1, 2]. Magnetoimpedance (MI) sensors based on very large change in ac impedance in soft magnetic
conductors may satisfy many of these requirements [3, 4]. Thus, the sensitivity of the relative
impedance change in Co-based amorphous wires of 10-30 micron in diameter is increased up to 600%
in characteristic fields of few Oersted at MHz frequencies [5]. Two main strategies have been adopted
for the development of MI sensors for particular applications. The first one is associated with tailoring
the materials properties by various technological treatments to design the required MI characteristics
[6,7] . In the other approach, the sensor construction is considered [8-11]. In this paper, multiwire off-
diagonal MI sensor is proposed with the aim to realize a miniature sensing head with improved full
scale of operation, sensitivity and signal-to-noise ratio.
In general, off-diagonal MI sensors [8,12,13] when the MI wire is excited by high frequency
current and the signal is taken from the coil mounted on the wire have a number of advantages. In this
configuration the MI sensor is vectorial having a linear region of the output signal with respect to the
sensed magnetic field. It is also possible to realise a resonance or pulsed excitation conditions with
greatly enhanced sensitivity. It has been recently reported that MI sensor utilising pulse- driven Co-
based amorphous wire with a detection coil of 600 turns has a resolution of 3 pT/Hz 0.5 [14]. However,
a many-turn detection coil may be a problem considering the complexity of sensor construction,
sensor-head size, and increased electronic noise.
A relatively novel approach to tailoring the MI response of magnetic wires is based on the dipole
interaction between them. Placing two or more magnetic wires close to each other will change their
static and dynamic magnetization due to the stray fields generated by neighboring wires. It was
reported that high frequency MI and its field sensitivity could be greatly improved in a parallel array
of glass-coated microwires [15, 16]. This multi-wire system was also demonstrated to have a potential
for sensitive detection of biomolecules [17].
In this work, the off-diagonal impedance of a number of Co-rich glass-coated amorphous
wires placed in the same coil is investigated. The wires are connected in parallel and excited by
harmonic or pulsed current. The best sensitivity of about 300mV/Oe is obtained for two wires excited
by a sinusoidal current and realising the resonance conditions for the detection circuit, which has only
40-60 turns. The full scale and linearity range are also increased more than twice in comparison with
those when only one wire is used. We conclude that off-diagonal MI sensors with multiple wires can
provide higher transfer function per one turn and could be advantageous for localised field detection.
Our approach is different from that developed in [18] where MI head consisted of 4 wires in
individual coils connected in series, which somehow helped to reduce the noise. However, the sensor
head size also increases which may be a problem for localised detection.
To a certain extent, the off-diagonal MI sensor configuration is similar to that for perpendicular
fluxgate [19-21]. However, the excitation and detection principles of fluxgates are different and are
based on a non-linear magnetisation and generation of higher harmonics (typically a deep saturation
into both polarities and the second harmonic mode are utilised). In the case of MI sensors, the
response signal is generated by linear magnetisation dynamics, preferably, in a saturated state. The
offset signal which influences the second harmonic mode is not a problem in this case. Multiwire core
orthogonal fluxgates have been also proposed to increase the sensitivity [22, 23]. When the wires were
closely packed, a nonlinear increase in sensitivity was observed, however, this was related with
realising a close to resonance excitation conditions.

2 Principles of Off-diagonal MI Sensor

When an ac current ݅௪ is flowing along a magnetic wire which has a permeability of a tensor form,
an inductive voltage is generated along the wire ( ܸ௪ ) and also in the coil (ܸ௖ ሻ as shown in Fig. 1. The
coil voltage is induced due to the cross-magnetization processes: the circular magnetic field gives rise
to both the circular magnetization (responsible for the wire voltage) and axial magnetization

1420
Multicore Off-Diagonal Magnetoimpedance Sensors ... N. Yudanov et al.

(responsible for the coil voltage). At certain conditions which include a strong skin effect and a
transverse magnetic structure, both of these voltages are very sensitive to the external magnetic field
‫ܪ‬௘௫ applied along the wire [24-26]. This is referred to as a magnetoimpedance (MI) effect. The ratios
ܼ௪ ൌ ܸ௪ Ȁ݅ and ܼ௖ ൌ ܸ௖ Ȁ݅ are known as diagonal and off-diagonal impedances, respectively. If the
wire is excited by ac current only, the voltages ܼ௪ and ܼ௖ are defined by a diagonal component and an
off-diagonal component of the surface impedance tensor, respectfully. At a mixed excitation by an ac
current and ac axial magnetic field, the both components contribute to each voltage. Here we consider
the current excitation excluding mixing the impedance components in the voltage response. The
magnetic wire can be also excited by a high-frequency magnetic field produced by the coil mounted
on the wire and the voltage signal is taken across the wire. In this case, the wire voltage is defined by
the off-diagonal component of the surface impedance tensor. However, this off-diagonal configuration
may not be preferable since the generated magnetic field is restricted by the coil self-inductance at
high frequencies. Typically, the excitation scheme of Fig. 1b is used in off-diagonal MI sensors.
In wires with a circumferential anisotropy and excited by the current the voltages ܼ௪ and ܼ௖ show
symmetric and anti-symmetric behavior with respect to ‫ܪ‬௘௫ , respectfully. Therefore, the off-diagonal
impedance can be used for measuring not only amplitude but also the field direction. Moreover,
ܼ௖ ( ‫ܪ‬௘௫ ) has almost a linear behavior in low field region which is a very important sensing
characteristic. If the wire has an ideal circular domain structure, the off-diagonal MI response from
domains with opposite circumferential magnetizations have opposite signs, the averaged response over
domains is null. A dc bias current eliminating the domain structure should be used to enhance ܸ௖ . A
pulse current excitation of the wire supplied by C-MOS IC multivibrator or a microcontroller is
typically used in off-diagonal MI sensors [27-29] which provides both high frequency and dc currents
to the wire. However, a harmonic excitation with a dc current can have advantages since the resonance
conditions of the detection circuit can be realized and the amplitude of the bias current can be
optimized with respect to magnetic hardness in the circumferential direction [30, 31] .

Figure: 1 Methods of excitation and detection for MI sensing element. A high frequency current is provided to
the MI element and the output voltage is measured across the wire (a) or from a coil mounted on it (b).

3 Experimental
Amorphous glass-coated wires of composition Co66.94Fe3.83Ni1.44B11.57Si14.59Mo1.69 were used in
off-diagonal MI sensors. The metal core diameter was 40 microns and the total diameter was 46
microns. The detection coil had 55 turns of 40 micron diameter Cu wire mounted directly on the MI
wire as shown in Fig. 2. The wire length was 8 mm.
The wire magnetic properties were investigated by measuring the hysteresis curves by a standard
inductive method.
The diagonal MI in these wires was found from measuring ܵଵଵ -parameter (forward reflection) with
the help of vector network analyser. For these measurements, the wire of the same length was soldered
in a specially designed high frequency cell. The details of the measurement setup can be found in [8].

1421
Multicore Off-Diagonal Magnetoimpedance Sensors ... N. Yudanov et al.

Conducting pads MI wires

Substrate Detecting coils

Figure 2: Schematics of off-diagonal MI element with multiple wires

The off-diagonal response was measured with the setup shown in Fig. 3. The functional generator
may supply to the wire a harmonic waveform of various frequencies up to 50 MHz and with various
dc bias current. The detection coil with the wires is placed between Helmholtz coils which produce a
magnetic field in the range of ± 60 Oe. The signal from the pickup coil is captured by digital
oscilloscope. The detection coil with MI wires constitutes a resonance LC-circuit with the resonance
frequency of about 20 MHz for the given parameters. The output signal has a sharp maximum at this
frequency (see Fig. 4) so the resonance frequency was used in other experiments.

Figure 3: Schematics of the experimental setup for off-diagonal MI

1422
Multicore Off-Diagonal Magnetoimpedance Sensors ... N. Yudanov et al.

Figure 4: Frequency characteristic of the output signal with a magnetic field of 1 Oe and a dc bias current of
7.7 mA.

4 Experimental Results and Discussion

The magnetization curves in a quasi dc magnetic field applied along the wire for a single wire and
two wires placed close together are shown in Fig. 5. The magnetization slope is slightly sharper for a
single wire with the circumferential anisotropy of about 80 A/m (~1 Oe). The decrease in the
magnetization slope and some increase in the effective anisotropy are caused by the magnetostatic
interaction between the wires which depends on the applied field and is more pronounced for higher
fields.
The MI characteristics for the diagonal impedance are shown in Fig. 6. Both the real and imaginary
parts of the impedance display two symmetrical peaks with a small hysteresis which is typical of a
wire with a circumferential anisotropy. The observed hysteresis corresponds to the behavior of the

1.0
1

2
0.5
M/MS

0.0

-0.5

-1.0
-150 -100 -50 0 50 100 150
H, A/m
Figure 5: Hysteresis loops of single (1, black curve) and two (2, red curve) glass-coated
Co66.94Fe3.83Ni1.44B11.57Si14.59Mo1.69 microwires.

1423
Multicore Off-Diagonal Magnetoimpedance Sensors ... N. Yudanov et al.

Figure 6: Magnetoimpedance characteristics for real and imaginary parts of the diagonal
impedance for a frequency of 20 MHz.

static magnetization shown in Fig. 5. The magnetic field of the real part peak is very close to the
anisotropy value of about 1.2 Oe and it is about 2 Oe for the imaginary part peak.
Therefore, the chosen magnetic wire has a magnetic anisotropy with the easy axis very close to the
circumferential direction and a small value of the effective anisotropy field. These are the conditions
to realize very large and sensitive magnetoimpedance with the sensitivity of more than 50%/Oe at 20
MHz in a low field region before the magnetization is set by the field along the wire. A small
hysteresis seen in Figs. 5, 6 can be removed by applying a dc current generating a circular bias
magnetic field. An optimal bias field was created by a dc current of 7.7 mA. This was used for off-
diagonal sensor excitation.
Figure 7 shows the off-diagonal voltage response for the MI element with a single wire and with
two wires placed close to each other. The total excitation current in two-wire MI element is the same
with that used for a single wire. The sensitivity to the field is just slightly lower for the two-wire
sensor, however, the maximum output voltage in the linear regime is higher by about 45% and the
field of this maximum is also increased to 1.8 Oe. The increase in the characteristic field of the voltage
maximum is consistent with the magnetization loops shown in Fig. 5. The hysteresis in the output
voltage behavior is not noticeable since the wire has no the domain structure due to the bias current.

Figure 7: Output signal amplitude vs magnetic field of the off-diagonal MI elements with single wire and
two-wire cores. The excitation voltage included a dc component of 2 V which generated a dc current in the wire
of 7.7 mA.

1424
Multicore Off-Diagonal Magnetoimpedance Sensors ... N. Yudanov et al.

When each wire is excited by the same current and wires are far away from each other so they do
not interact, the sensitivity increases linearly with the number of wires but the characteristic field does
not change. If the interaction between the wires is essential, the sensitivity considerably drops if more
than two wires are used. Therefore, in terms of power consumption, sensitivity and full scale the MI
element consisting of two closely spaced wires seems to be optimal.
Figure 8 compares the response of the two-wire MI core when no dc bias is applied and in the
presence of dc bias (positive and negative). It is seen that without a bias and in the low- field region
the sensor response is almost zero. However, at higher fields the sensitivity increases and is almost the
same as that obtained with the help of the dc bias. This behavior can be explained by the influence of
the magnetostatic interaction between the wires which increases with the field. The effect of positive
and negative bias is almost the same as it should be in the case of the circumferential anisotropy.

Figure 8: Output signal amplitude vs magnetic field of the two-wire core MI sensor when no dc bias is
applied (green curve), positive bias (+Idc, blue curve) and negative bias (-Idc, red curve).

Conclusion
The off-diagonal impedance from two-wire core utilising Co-based glass-coated amorphous wires
with large magnetoimpedance effect could be advantageous in comparison with the response from a
single wire core. Two wires connected in parallel and excited by a harmonic current with a frequency
corresponding to the resonance frequency of the detection circuit give an increase in the output voltage
by 45% and the saturation field increases almost twice improving the linearity range in comparison
with the characteristics of a single wire MI. The response drops if the distance between the wires is
increased and the magnetostatic interaction is not essential. The maximum sensitivity for two wire
sensor is about 380mV/Oe within the field interval ± 1.8 Oe.

Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Russian Federation State contract for organizing a scientific work and
partially supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Rresearch, grant № 13-08-01319. The
authors are very thankful to Dr. V. Larin, MFTI Ltd for donating the wire samples.

References
[1] D. Robbes, C. Dolabdjian, S. Saez, Y. Monfort, G. Kaiser, P. Ciureanu, (2001) IEEE Transaction
on Applied Superconductivity, 11, 629.

1425
Multicore Off-Diagonal Magnetoimpedance Sensors ... N. Yudanov et al.

[2] P. Ripka (Ed.), (2001) Magnetic Sensors and Magnetometer, Artech.

[3] K. Mohri, Y. Honkura, L.V. Panina, T. Uchiyama, (2012) Journal of Nanoscience and
Nanotechnology,12, 7491.
[4] T. Uchiyama, K. Mohri, Y. Honkura, and L.V. Panina , (2012) IEEE Trans Magn, 48 , 3833.
[5] V. Zhukova, A. Chizhik, A. Zhukov, A. Torcunov, V. Larin, and J. Gonzalez, (2002) IEEE Trans.
Magn., 38, 3090.
[6] A.Talaat , V. Zhukova, M. Ipatov, J. M. Blanco, L. Gonzalez-Legarreta., B. Hernando, J. J.del Val,
J. Gonzalez, A. Zhukov, (2014) J. Appl. Phys. 115.
[7] H. Chiriac, T.-A. Ovari, and A. Zhukov, (2003) J. Magn. Magn. Mater. 254–255, 469.
[8] S.Sandacci, D. Makhnovskiy, L. Panina, K. Mohri, and Y. Honkura , (2004) IEEE Trans.
Magn.,40, 3905-10.
[9] H. Mawatari, H. Kikuchi, S. Yabukami, M. Yamaguchi, and K. I. Arai, (2003) J. Magn. Soc. Jpn.,
27, 414.
[10] N. Kawajiri, M. Kakabayashi, C.M. Cai, K. Mohri, T. Uchiyama, (1999) IEEE Trans. Magn., 35,
3667.
[11] B. Fisher, L. V. Panina, D. J. Mapps, N. Fry, (2013) IEEE Trans Magn , 49, 89.
[12] A. S. Antonov, I. T. Iakubov, and A. N. Lagarkov, (1998)J. Magn. Magn. Mat., 187, 252.
[13] K. Mohri, Y. Honkura, (2007) Sensor Letters, 5, 267.
[14] T. Uchiyama, K. Mohri, and S. Nakayama, ( 2011) IEEE Trans. Magn., 47, 3066.
[15] J. Devkota, A. Ruiz, P. Mukherjee, H. Srikanth, M.H. Phan, A. Zhukov, V.S. Larin, J. Alloys and
Compounds, (2013) 549, 295.
[16] C. Garcia, V. Zhukova, A. Zhukov, N. Usov, M. Ipatov, J. Gonzalez, J.M. Blanco, (2007) Sensors
Lett. 5, 1.
[17] H. Chiriac, D.D. Herea, S. Corodeanu, J. Magn. Magn. Mater., (2007) 311, 425.
[18] T. Uchiyama, N. Hamada, C. Changmei, (2013) Sensing Technology (ICST), 573.
[19] K. Goleman, I. Sasada, (2007) IEEE Trans. Magn, 43, 2379.
[20] I. Sasada, IEEE Trans. Magn. (2002) 38, 3377.
[21] Z.J. Zhao, X.P. Li, J. Fan, H.L. Seet, X.B. Qian, P. Ripka, (2007) Sens. Actuators A, 136, 90.
[22] P. Ripka, X.P. Li, J. Fan, (2009)Sensors and Actuators A, 156, 265.
[23] X.P. Li, J. Fan, J. Ding, X.B. Qian, (2006) J. Magn. Magn. Mater., 300 , 98.
[24] D. P. Makhnovskiy, L. V. Panina, and D. J. Mapps, (2001) Phys. Rev. B, 63, 144424.
[25] M. Ipatov, V. Zhukova, A. Zhukov, J. Gonzalez, A. Zvezdin (2010) Phys. Rev.B 81, 134421.
[26] M. Ipatov, V. Zhukova, J. M. Blanko, J. Gonzales, A. Zhukov A., (2008) Phys. Status Solidi (a),
205, 1779.
[27] T. Kanno, K. Mohri, T. Yagi, T. Uchiyama, L.P. Shen, (1997) IEEE Trans. Magn. Vol.33, No.5,
3353.
[28] K. Mohri, T. Uchiyama, L. P. Shen, C. M. Cai, L. V. Panina, Y. Honkura, M. Yamamoto, (2002)
IEEE Trans. Magn., 38, 3063.
[29] N. A. Yudanov1, A. A. Rudyonok1, L. V. Panina1,2,*, A. V. Kolesnikov1, A. T. Morchenko1 and V.
G. Kostishyn, (2014) J. Nano- and Electronic Physics, 6, 04001.
[30] Yudanov N.A., Panina L.V., Morchenko A.T., Kostishyn V.G., Ryapolov P.A. (2013) J. Nano-
and Electronic Physics , 5, 04004.
[31] S. Yabukami, H. Mawatari, Y. Murayama, T. Ozawa, K. Ishiyama, and K. I. Arai, (2004) IEEE
Trans. Magn., 40, 2670.

1426