Current Progress of Magnetoresistance Sensors

Magnetoresistance (MR) is the variation of a material's resistivity under the presence of external magnetic fields. Reading heads in hard disk drives (HDDs) are the most common applications of MR sensors. Since the discovery of giant magnetoresistance (GMR) in the 1980s and the application of GMR reading heads in the 1990s, the MR sensors lead to the rapid developments of the HDDs' storage capacity. Nowadays, MR sensors are employed in magnetic storage, position sensing, current sensing, non-destructive monitoring, and biomedical sensing systems. MR sensors are used to transfer the variation of the target magnetic fields to other signals such as resistance change. This review illustrates the progress of developing nanoconstructed MR materials/structures. Meanwhile, it offers an overview of current trends regarding the applications of MR sensors. In addition, the challenges in designing/developing MR sensors with enhanced performance and cost-efficiency are discussed in this review.

Automated summary

Magnetoresistance (MR) is the change in resistivity of a material when exposed to an external magnetic field. Its most common application is in the reading heads of hard disk drives (HDDs). Since the discovery of giant magnetoresistance (GMR) in the 1980s, MR sensors have significantly contributed to the rapid development of HDD storage capacity and are now widely used in magnetic storage, position sensing, current sensing, and biomedical applications.