Amorphous wire and CMOS IC-based sensitive micro-magnetic sensors (MI sensor and SI sensor) for intelligent measurements and controls

New sensitive, quick response and low power consumption micro-magnetic sensors named the magnetoimpedance (MI) sensor utilizing the MI effect in zero-magnetostrictive amorphous wires and the stress impedance (SI) sensor utilizing the SI effect in negative-magnetostrictive amorphous wires are presented. The field detection resolution of the CMOS IC type MI sensor is about 1 muOe for AC fields and 100 muOe for a DC field with the full scale of +/-3 Oe using a 2 mm long sensor head; the possible response speed is about 1 MHz, and the power consumption is about 10 mW. The high density fabricated MI sensor has just been developed by the Aichi Steel Co. for mass production. The stress detection resolution of the SI sensor is about 0.1 Gal in acceleration sensing which is suitable for detection of micro-displacement in the medical field. More than 100 themes are proposed for application of MI and SI sensors. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.