Half bridge configurated magneto-resistive sensors with flux guide structure for enhancing sensitivity

Abstract

We demonstrate the enhancement in sensitivity of half Wheatstone bridge configurated magneto-resistive sensors with a design of the magnetic flux guide. The efficacy of our flux guide design, in comparison to the conventional micro-magnetic flux concentrator for improving the flux gain, is studied using finite element method and verified with the experimental result. We observed a sensitivity of 260%/mT for our half Wheatstone bridge sensor with a very small coercivity of 0.01 mT at room temperature. Our work will contribute to paving a road map for mass production of sensitive magneto-resistive sensors with small footprints (2.5 mm2 in this study).