Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Preliminary Design and Noise Considerations for an Ultrasensitive Magnetic Field Sensor

Published

Author(s)

Philip Pong, Robert D. McMichael, William F. Egelhoff Jr.

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss the structural design including the materials, junction areas, and magnetic layers thicknesses, and various noise sources including Johnson noise, shot noise, 1/f noise, and thermal magnetic noise, that must be considered when building a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) magnetic field sensor with the goal of SQUID-like sensitivity. Analytical derivations of the sensor sensitivity and different noise sources are provided. A highly-portable software design tool is developed to optimize the various parameters of the sensor design, while also predicting the expected sensitivity, operating frequency range, operating current and power of the finished sensor. The functions and operations of this design tool are described. The relationships between the sensor detectivity and some critical design parameters are studied with this design tool. A possible design for the construction of an ultrasensitive magnetic field sensor is proposed.
Citation
SPIE

Keywords

design tool, Johnson noise, l/f noise, mag noise, magnetic field sensor, magnetic tunnel junction, tunneling magnetoresistance

Citation

Pong, P. , McMichael, R. and Egelhoff Jr., W. (2008), Preliminary Design and Noise Considerations for an Ultrasensitive Magnetic Field Sensor, SPIE (Accessed March 28, 2024)
Created October 16, 2008