Noise suppression and sensitivity manipulation of magnetic tunnel junction sensors with soft magnetic Co70.5Fe4.5Si15B10 layer

The voltage noise characteristic and sensitivity of magnetic tunnel junction sensors are crucial for ultralow field detection. In this work, we used a soft magnetic material electrode Co70.5Fe4.5Si15B10 as a sensing layer to improve the sensitivity. Then, a bias field along the easy axis of a free layer was applied to improve the linearity and manipulate the sensitivity of magnetic tunnel junction sensors. More importantly, random telegraph noise was suppressed by the bias field, resulting in hysteresis-free performance. The highest sensitivity of 3.9%/Oe and the best field detectivity of 4.5nT/ root Hz at 10 Hz without hysteresis have been achieved. The sensors showed excellent performance with CoFeSiB electrodes, indicating that it is an effective way to improve the performance of sensors by introducing the bias field. Published by AIP Publishing.