A giant leap for magneto-resistive sensors
Magnetic sensors of different types are sold for billions of dollars yearly and used in a wide range of applications including speed and position sensing, electrical current detection, navigation, monitoring electrical activity of the heart and brain, etc. Furthermore, the demand for magnetic sensors is expected to rise fueled, for example, by the increasing demand for sensors with the development of “Internet of Things”, autonomous vehicles, and robotics.
Among the different types of sensors those known as “magnetoresistive sensors” attract particular interest due to a combination of low cost, room temperature operation and sensitivity. However, until now important applications (e.g., medical examination or geophysical surveys) were beyond the scope of such sensors due to insufficient sensitivity achieved only by sensors which are much more expensive and are either bulkier or need to be operated at temperatures below minus 200 Celsius. However, this may change now as a group of researchers from Bar-Ilan and Ben-Gurion universities headed by Prof. Lior Klein and Dr. Asaf Grosz reported a giant leap of more than an order of magnitude improvement in the sensitivity of magnetoresistive sensors.
The sensors developed by the two groups can detect low-frequency magnetic fields smaller than 5 pico-Tesla which is 10 million times smaller than the Earth magnetic field. Such sensitivity may pave the way for new opportunities in areas such as healthcare, automobile industry, homeland security, etc. Furthermore, the developed sensors are miniature (on the order of millimeters), operate at room temperature, and their cost is expected to be relatively low, similar to the cost of much less sensitive magnetoresistive sensors. The recent development has been reported in a paper co-authored by the group leaders, Dr. Nhalil and other members in the two groups. The paper has been published in the journal IEEE Sensors Letters which is a leading journal in the field of sensors.
