Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials 157/158 (1996) 440-441

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Three-axis cryogenic Hall sensor

J. Kvitkovi~ *, M. Majoro~
Institute of Electrical Engineering, Slovak Academy of Sciences, D{tbravsk5 cesta 9, 842 39 Bratislava, Slovak Republic

Abstract
Magnetic field measurements are very important for magnetic and superconducting material research. Hall sensors have
many advantages for these measurements. They can also be used for magnetic field profile measurements, which provide
information about material homogeneity. We have developed a three-axis Hall system which consists of three perpendicular
InSb Hall sensors for operation at room as well as cryogenic temperatures. The active area of each sensor is 50 × 50 bcm2. It
is located at the comer edge of the substrate and is suitable for detecting the spatial field profile within a cube of
225 × 225 × 225 /zm 3. The sensitivity of the sensor is of the order of 20 m V / T and the offset voltage is < 50 /zV for a
nominal control current of 10 mA. The problems of detecting the 3D field components using planar Hall sensors and the
oscillatory signal behaviour due to quantum effects are discussed.

Keywords: Hall sensor; Magnetic field; Superconductor

1. I n t r o d u c t i o n ceramics substrate to its lower left corner. By this proce-

dure and by reduction of the thickness of substrate edges it
The investigation of the trapped magnetic field near the is possible to place the active area of the elementary Hall
surface of superconducting or magnetic samples by a Hall sensor within a space of dimensions 225 × 225 × 225
probe is the most straightforward method for characteriz- /xm 3. This enables us to measure the tangential field
ing their granularity and homogeneity in a quick and components at a distance of 250 /xm from the sample
simple way. Local magnetic properties can be measured surface. The InSb plate was thinned by grinding and
without limitation from sample dimensions. Profile mea-
surements are more advantageous than magnetic investiga-
tions using pick-up coil based methods such as vibrating-
sample or SQUID magnetometers. In particular, the mea- 29
surement of both axial and tangential magnetic field com-
ponents offers complementary information about the num-
ber of grains, their dimensions and locations [1-3]. In the
present paper we report on the development and testing of 28.5 T=4.2 K
a sensor for the measurement of all three vector magnetic
field components.
%0.:.° , . • . .

2. D e s c r i p t i o n o f t h e H a l l s e n s o r z8

y
• ~ q [ b O • °11~0 • $ 0 ~ 0 • ° • • D4DID• • • • ~°OLD|

The elementary Hall sensor is fabricated from

monocrystalline InSb which is glued to the supporting
ceramics. We have designed the geometry of the active 27.5
sensor area in the shape as shown in the insert of Fig. 1.
The active area was reduced to dimensions of 50 /xm × 50
/zm and its position was shifted from the center of the
27 I , I F t

i 2 3 4
B [w]
* Corresponding author. Fax: +42-7-375-816; email: Fig. 1. Magnetic field dependence of the sensitivity and the
elekkvit @savba.sk. photolithographical mask of the Hall sensor.

0304-8853/96/$15.00 Copyright © 1996 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

SSDI 0 3 0 4 - 8 8 5 3 ( 9 5 ) 0 1 2 2 1 - 4
 J. Kvitkovi{, M. Majoro~/ Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials 157/158 (1996) 440-441
polishing. The Hall sensor was patterned by photolitho-
graphical methods. After etching, the Hall and current
contacts were soldered by indium to copper wires. The
Hall sensor for 3D field measurements consists of three
independent Hall sensors whose active area centers are
placed in three mutually perpendicular planes. All three
Hall sensors are supplied by a single constant current
source of 10 m A with 10 -5 stability.
3. Properties and experimental results
The sensitivity of each elementary sensor is in the
range 2 0 - 3 5 m V / T and the offset voltage is < 5 0 / z V for
a nominal control current of 10 mA. The linearity error
(nonlinear magnetic field dependence of sensitivity C) was
measured in a superconducting magnet in the magnetic
field range 0 - 5 T at a temperature of 4.2 K (Fig. 1). It can
be seen that the maximum linearity error in this magnetic
field range is < 1%. At 4.2 K and in magnetic fields
higher than 2 T quantum oscillations of the Hall voltage
appear which are caused by the de H a a s - S h u b n i k o v effect.
Oscillations are observed if an electron performs more
than one cyclotron motion between subsequent collisions,
i.e. wc~-> 1 or /zB > 1, where T is the mean collision
time, ~ the carrier mobility, and B the magnetic induction
[4]. An additional criterion is ho~c > 2~rkT, where oJ° =
eB/m* is the cyclotron frequency, m* the effective mass
of charge carriers, e the electron charge, k the Boltzman
constant, T the temperature, and h Planck's constant. W e
have optimized the material parameters in order to reduce
T:77 K
15
• • II
12
> 9
•
•
+
•***•'
l *
• • • A AA' " • • A
6 a•
+ •
0
-I00
i•
ioi
.~'°,
~
• A oo o°
•
......
-50
g o Oo
ooOOO 1
0
.......
[o]
Fig. 2. Angular dependence of the Hall voltage for various
magnetic fields.
441
the quantum oscillations. To fulfil the condition /xB < 1
one must reduce the mobility /L ~ 1/n by appropriate
doping n with scattering cross section c~,. The m o b i l i t y / z
only indirectly depends on concentration n (it scales with
the dopant concentration by ionized impurity scattering at
low temperatures). On the other hand, an increase of the
concentration n of carders reduces the Hall constant, i.e.
the sensitivity of the Hall sensor is diminished [4,5]. W e
chose a doping level of n = 2 X 1017 cm 3 as a compromise
between avoidance of quantum oscillations and loss of
sensitivity. It is known that the Hall sensor is sensitive
only to components of the magnetic field perpendicular to
its surface, ff the magnetic induction B is not perpendicu-
l o t t o the sample surface the output voltage is proportional
to the projection of the magnetic induction B N o n t o the
perpendicular axis of the sensor [6]:
UH =RHZBN/t= (RralBcos 6 ) / t ,
where R H is the Hall constant, I the control current, t the
thickness of the semiconductor, and 3 the angle between
B and the surface normal. W e placed the Hall sensor in a
plane perpendicular to the external magnetic field and
rotated this plane by angle 6 from - 9 0 ° to + 90 °. The
measurement was performed in magnetic fields up to 0.4 T
at a temperature of 77 K (Fig. 2).
4. Summary
We have developed a three-axis cryogenic Hall sensor
for measurement of all three field components in the
temperature interval from 4.2 up to 350 K. The sensor has
IHp:10 mA a rather small linearity error of < 1% in magnetic fields
up to 5 T and reduced quantum oscillations. In the case of
our selected InSb material the error caused by the planar
• ", • B=0.1 T
Hall effect is less than 0.8% at a magnetic field of 1 T.
• • B=0.2 T
Acknowledgement: The authors would like to acknowl-
* B=0.3 T
• • B=0.4 T
edge support for this work by the Slovak Grant Agency,
grant No. 2 / 1 0 8 6 .
References
• •
• A • •
AA ~ [1] F. Frangi, L. Jan~.k, M. Majoro~ and S. Zannella, Physica C
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. .i:::i:.:,
50 tO0
[2] M. PolAk, M. Majoro~ and J. Kvitkovi~, Cryogenics 34 (ICEC
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V. Ottoboni and S. Zannella, in: Proc. Magnet Technology '95
Conf., Tampere, Finland, in press.
[4] R. Boll and K.J. Overshott, in: Magnetic Sensors (VCH,
Cambridge, 1989)p. 1.
[5] M. Polfik, Electrotechnical J. 25 (1974) 456.
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