Using an inverter to measure magnetic fields

A toroidal core may be used with an inverter circuit to measure magnetic fields in the .8 to 80,000 A/m (.01 to 1.0 KOe) range. The sensor core may be the inverter transformer itself or may be coupled to a nonsaturating inverter transformer. The sensor is most sensitive to fields parallel to the plane of the sensor and the sensitivity is greatest for a core biased to near saturation. An empirical expression for the demagnetization factor is used in calculating the ambient field required to saturate the sensor core, making it possible to calculate the range of fields for which a given core could be used as a sensor.     

Development and comparative analysis of fluxgate magnetic sensor structures in PCB technology

In this paper, we present a family of fluxgate magnetic sensors on printed circuit boards (PCBs), suitable for an electronic compass. This fabrication process is simple and inexpensive and uses commercially available thin ferromagnetic materials. We developed and analyzed the prototype sensors with software tools based on the finite-element method. We developed both singleand double-axis planar fluxgate magnetic sensors as well as front-end circuitry based on second-harmonic detection. Two amorphous magnetic materials, Vitrovac 6025X (25 /spl mu/m thick) and Vitrovac 6025Z (20 /spl mu/m thick), were used as the ferromagnetic core. We found that the same structures can be made with Metglas ferromagnetic core. The double-axis fluxgate magnetic sensor has a sensitivity of about 1.25 mV//spl mu/T with a linearity error of 1.5% full scale, which is suitable for detecting Earth's magnetic field (/spl plusmn/60 /spl mu/T full-scale) in an electronic compass.     

Fiber optic ultrasonic sensor using Raman-Nath light diffraction

A novel fiber optic ultrasonic sensor using the principle of Raman-Nath light diffraction has been developed. The sensor does not perturb the acoustic field and exhibits a wideband frequency response. In addition to the remote sensing of the field, it is suitable for measurements of both continuous and pulsed ultrasonic waves. The experimental results obtained with the sensor were compared to those measured using a calibrated PVDF needle hydrophone, showing excellent agreement. The sensor's frequency response in the range from 3 to 15 MHz, typical of that used in medical ultrasound imaging, was determined using the time delay spectrometry (TDS) technique. It appears that the fiber optic sensor provides a useful alternative to the widely used PVDF ultrasonic probes in specific applications where any perturbation between acoustic field and sensor is undesirable. Also, since the active element diameter of the sensor can be made comparable to the core diameter of an optical fiber, the fiber optic sensor minimizes the spatial averaging effects and offers significant improvement in comparison with the present state-of-the-art hydrophones which have a minimum diameter on the order of 300 μm     

Magnetic Field and Displacement Sensor Based on Giant Magneto-Impedance Effect

A two-core transducer assembly using a Fe_73.5Nb₃Cu₁Si_13.5B₉ ribbon to detect a change of magnetic field is proposed and tested for displacement (linear and angular) and current sensor. Two identical inductors, with the ribbon as core, are part of a two-series resonance network, and are in a high impedance state when excited by a small AC field of 1 MHz in the absence of a DC biasing field (H_dc). When the magnetic state of one inductor is altered by the biasing field, produced by a bar magnet or current carrying coil, an AC signal proportional to H_dc is generated by the transducer. The results for the sensitivity and linearity with displacement (linear and angular) of a magnet and with field from the current carrying coil are presented for two particular configurations of the transducer. High sensitivities of voltage response as much as 12 µV/µm and 3 mV/degree have been obtained for the transducer as a linear and angular displacement sensor, respectively, in the transverse configuration of exciting AC and biasing DC fields.     

Development and analysis of a PCB vector 2-D magnetic field sensor system for electronic compasses

A high-sensitivity vector two-dimensional (2-D) magnetic sensor system for low magnetic field measurements has been realized and tested. The system, made in PCB technology, consists of a double-axis Fluxgate magnetic sensor and the readout electronic circuitry, based on second-harmonic detection. The amorphous magnetic materials Vitrovac 6025X (25 /spl mu/m thick) and Vitrovac 6025Z (20 /spl mu/m thick) were used as the ferromagnetic core of the sensor. By applying a sinusoidal excitation current having a 450-mA peak at 10 kHz with Vitrovac 6025Z, the measured magnetic sensitivity was about 1.25 mV//spl mu/T. This value seems to be adequate for the Earth's magnetic field detection (/spl plusmn/60 /spl mu/T). The full-scale linearity error was about 1.5%. By using the thicker Vitrovac 6025X and a sinusoidal excitation current having a 600-mA peak at 10 kHz, a maximum sensitivity of approximately 1.68 mV//spl mu/T with a linearity error of about 1.55% full scale in the range of /spl plusmn/60 /spl mu/T were measured. Due to the use of commercially available ferromagnetic materials, the vector 2-D magnetic sensor system presented is characterized by a very simple fabrication process, thus allowing low-cost devices to be designed.     

Optical properties of dual-core hollow waveguides

A new type of hollow glass waveguide has been fabricated that transmits radiation from visible to infrared wavelengths with low loss. The broadband transmission is achieved with a structure consisting of two distinct core regions; a silica annulus for transmission of wavelengths from 0.3 to 2.0 μm and a hollow core for transmission from 2.0 to 12.0 μm. Losses in the silica core at 633 nm are 0.3 dB/m. Losses in the 575-μm bore hollow core at 10.6 μm are 0.6 dB/m. Bending loss is negligible for radiation transmitted in the solid silica core, whereas the hollow guide loss exhibits a 1/R dependence. The dual-core waveguide can transmit broadband radiation, is rugged and flexible, and therefore, is a good candidate for medical or sensor applications.     

An optical-fiber sensor for use in water systems utilizing digital signal processing techniques and artificial neural network pattern recognition

An optical-fiber sensor is reported which is capable of detecting ethanol in water. A single optical-fiber sensor was incorporated into a 1-km length of 62.5-/spl mu/m core diameter polymer-clad silica optical fiber. In order to maximize sensitivity, a U-bend configuration was used for the sensor where the cladding was removed and the core exposed directly to the fluid under test. The sensor was interrogated using optical time domain reflectrometry, as it is intended to extend this work to multiple sensors on a single fiber. In this investigation, the sensor was exposed to air, water, and alcohol. The signal processing technique has been designed to optimize the neural network adopted in the existing sensor system. In this investigation, a discrete Fourier transform, using a fast Fourier transform algorithm, is chosen and its application leads to an improvement in efficiency of the neural network i.e., minimizing the computing resources. Using the Stuttgart neural network simulator, a feed-forward three-layer neural network was constructed with the number of input nodes corresponding to the number of points required to represent the sensor frequency domain response.     

New Magnetic Field Sensor Based on Combined Flux-Gate/Hall-Effect Arrangement

A novel planar magnetic field sensor is presented that is based on a combined flux-gate/Hall-effect arrangement capable of measuring the three components of a three-dimensional quasi-static magnetic field. The proposed device involves a thin, isotropic, circular magnetic core, the magnetization of which is driven to saturation by means of a rotating excitation-field, produced by four printed planar coils. That way, the core magnetization rotates, without Barkhausen jumps inducing a flux-density change that is sensed by a Hall device positioned at the edge of the core. The presented sensor consists of a discrete Hall device, electronic modulation-demodulation circuitry and a circular amorphous core packaged on a printed circuit board (PCB), constructed as a proof of concept for the proposed magnetic field measuring method.     

Magneto-impedance element

The magneto-impedance (MI) effect is a phenomenon in which the voltage induced by a high frequency current source in a ferromagnetic wire changes with the application of an external field. A giant MI effect was found in amorphous magnetic wires having a composition of (Fe _0.06Co_0.94)_72.5Si_12.5B ₁₅ and a magnetostriction of (-10^-7). The amplitude of the wire voltage decreased by 40% at 1 MHz, 60% (600 kHz) and 50% (150 kHz), for wires having diameters 30 μm, 50 μm and 124 μm, respectively, under the influence of an external longitudinal field of about 10 Oe (800 A/m). A highly sensitive and quick-response field sensor was constructed using a 200 MHz resonant multivibrator bridge-circuit combining two MI-effect elements of 1 mm length with two field effect transistors (FET). Highly sensitive flux detection was carried out by using the small MI sensor head on a rotary encoder magnet having 512 poles and a diameter of 30 mm. Discussion of a mechanism for the MI effect considers the skin effect in an amorphous wire with high circumferential anisotropy     

Optical-fiber sensor using tailored porous sol-gel fiber core

A new concept in optical-fiber chemical sensors, the active fiber core optical sensor (AFCOS), is presented. In this sensor, the fiber core acts as a transducer. The sensitivity of an AFCOS sensor is compared with that of an active coating [evanescent wave (EW)] based optical-fiber sensor. Requirements for a fiber core to act as a chemical sensor are discussed. Novel techniques for making a porous sol-gel silica fiber, doping chemical reagents into the fiber, and constructing a chemical sensor using the porous fiber as a transducer have been developed. The microstructure of the fabricated sol-gel silica fiber and the effect of the fiber's microstructure on the capability of the porous sol-gel silica fiber for guiding light are discussed. A humidity sensor employing a CoCl/sub 2/-doped porous sol-gel fiber as a transducer has been constructed as an example. The test results for the humidity sensor verified a theoretical analysis indicating that an optical-fiber chemical sensor using an active fiber core as a transducer has a much higher sensitivity than that of an EW-based sensor.     

Optical fiber magnetic field sensor based on multi-mode fiber and core-offset structure

A magnetic field sensor based on a magnetic fluid (MF)-coated intermodal interferometer is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. It is fabricated by a core-offset structure between two segments of multi-mode fibres (MMF), a spherical structure is formed in the end of the second segment MMF. The core-offset section can be used to excite the core mode to the cladding, then the core and cladding modes will interference at the spherical structure due to the optical path difference caused by the refractive index difference. Two interference valleys of the interferometer integrated with MF under different magnetic field intensities have been experimentally analysed. The experimental results exhibit that the sensor possesses a magnetic field sensitivity of ?0.187 nm/mT by monitoring the wavelength shift at the magnetic field intensity from 0 to 20mT, and the optical power attenuation at specific wavelength with a magnetic field has a maximum sensitivity of 0.228 dB/mT.     

A new current sensor based on the measurement of the apparentcoercive field strength

A current sensor that uses the change of the apparent coercive field strength caused by the current to be measured is introduced. The apparent coercive field strength is derived from the magnetizing current by detecting the zero crossing points of the average magnetic flux of a core pair. The current is periodically measured at a frequency which is the same as that of the magnetizing current of the sensor. The current sensor shows a standard deviation of the nonlinearity of less than 0.002%, and can measure transient current signals with an 80-kHz sampling rate     

A micromachined wide-bandwidth magnetic field sensor based on all-PMMA electron tunneling transducer

All-PMMA-based tunneling magnetic sensors were fabricated by hot embossing replication with silicon templates. The silicon templates had smooth surfaces, positive profiles, and pyramid-like pits with a high aspect ratio. With this fast (20 min), simple (one-step), and repeatable method, the all-PMMA tunneling sensor platform yielded sharp tunneling tips with 75 /spl mu/m in baseline and 50 /spl mu/m in depth. The sensors were assembled and fixed with measurement circuits, after their electrodes were patterned with modified photolithography and Co film was deposited with e-beam evaporation. A natural frequency response of 1.3 kHz was observed, and a tunneling barrier height of 0.713 eV was tested. Due to the quadratic relation between magnetic force and the field, the sensor field response (7.0/spl times/10/sup 6/ V/T/sup 2/) was also quadratic. The noise voltage at 1 kHz is 0.2 mV, corresponding to a magnet field of 0.46/spl times/10/sup -6/ T. The bandwidth of this sensor is 18 kHz. This new type of sensor platform is promising for the next generation of microsensing applications.     

Low-Power Printed Circuit Board Fluxgate Sensor

A new printed circuit board flat fluxgate sensor with integrated coils and amorphous alloy core was developed and its excitation parameters optimized for low-power consumption. The power consumption achieved with 10 kHz, 300 mA p-p pulse excitation with duty cycle 12.5% was only 3.9 mW, which is three times lower than that for sinewave B excitation. The sensor sensitivity reached 94 V/T. The required excitation bridge supply voltage was only 0.47 V. The low-cost low-power sensor has a temperature offset stability of 120 nT in the -20 to +70 degC temperature range and 0.17%/degC open-loop sensitivity tempco due to the use of a new core embedding technique. The perming error due to 10 mT field shock was suppressed below 1.2 muT. The short-time offset stability was 38 nT within 3 h. Thus the developed sensor is more precise and less energy consuming than a periodically flipped anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) sensor. The achieved parameters are sufficient for compass with 0.1deg error     

The theoretical output of a ring core fluxgate sensor

This article proves that the output from a ring core sensor is directly proportional to the first time derivative of the product of dynamic permeability and magnetic intensity perturbation within the core caused by an external, uniform magnetic field. (Dynamic permeability is defined to be the slope of the hysteresis loop at a given point in time.) Assuming that ellipsoidal shells can approximate the core, the demagnetization factor can be "estimated" in the first order to be proportional to the first power of the quantity tape thickness (or number of wraps) divided by the core diameter. The constant of proportionality is determined from laboratory data. When an additional scale adjustment is applied to the resulting sensor output formula, the computed output tracks laboratory data for a range of sensor geometries.     

Liquid crystal infiltrated photonic crystal fibers for electric field intensity measurements

The application of nematic liquid crystal infiltrated photonic crystal fiber as a sensor for electric field intensity measurement is demonstrated. The device is based on an intrinsic sensing mechanism for electric fields. The sensor probe, which consists of a 1 cm infiltrated section of photonic crystal fiber with a lateral size of ～125 μm, is very compact with small size and weight. A simple all-fiber design for the sensor is employed in an intensity based measurement scheme. The transmitted and reflected power of the infiltrated photonic crystal fiber is shown to have a linear response with the applied electric field. The sensor is operated in the telecommunication window at 1550 nm. The temperature dependence of the device at this operating wavelength is also experimentally studied and discussed. These structures can be used to accurately measure electric field intensity and can be used for the fabrication of all-fiber sensors for high electric field environments as both an in-line and reflective type point sensor.     

Performance improvement in Mach–Zehnder interferometer-based refractive index sensor using elliptical photonic nanowires

We propose a modified Mach–Zehnder interferometer design based on elliptical silica photonic nanowires. The use of the interferometer as an evanescent field-based refractive index (RI) sensor was numerically investigated. Single-mode operation, maintaining polarization and very high sensitivity, is achieved at short optical wavelengths by simply using elliptical nanowires. The proposed sensor is capable of determining the RI of benzene solutions with different concentrations in water and detecting a RI variation of the order of 10^?6 RI units in only a 1-mm length sensitive area. Extremely high sensitivity of 4.63?rad/μm is achieved using an 800?nm elliptical silica nanowire diameter. The operating wavelengths (λ = 650?nm and 970?nm) were chosen to avoid high water absorption. The sensor is shown to be an alternative solution to small circular-nanowire-based sensor whose core size needs to be significantly reduced below 400?nm to achieve comparable performance.     

A novel sensor for monitoring acoustic cavitation. Part I: Concept, theory, and prototype development

This paper describes a new concept for an ultrasonic cavitation sensor designed specifically for monitoring acoustic emissions generated by small microbubbles when driven by an applied acoustic field. Its novel features include a hollow, open-ended, cylindrical shape, with the sensor being a right circular cylinder of height 32 mm and external diameter 38 mm. The internal diameter of the sensor is 30 mm; its inner surface is fabricated from a 110 /spl mu/m layer of piezoelectrically active film whose measurement bandwidth is sufficient to enable acoustic emissions up to and beyond 10 MHz to be monitored. When in use, the sensor is immersed within the liquid test medium and high frequency (megahertz) acoustic emissions occurring within the hollow body of the sensor are monitored. In order to shield the sensor response from events occurring outside the cylinder, the outer surface of the sensor cylinder is encapsulated within a special 4 mm thick polyurethane-based cavitation shield with acoustic properties specifically developed to be minimally perturbing to the 40 kHz applied acoustic field but attenuating to ultrasound generated at megahertz frequencies (plane-wave transmission loss >30 dB at 1 MHz). This paper introduces the rationale behind the new sensor, describing details of its construction and the materials formulation program undertaken to develop the cavitation shield.     

New hybrid technology for planar fluxgate sensor fabrication

We have adapted a new printed circuit board (PCB) technology to the fabrication of ultraflat and sensitive fluxgate magnetic field sensors. The two outer layers of the PCB stack compose the electrical windings of fluxgates, while the inner layer is made of a micro-patterned amorphous magnetic ribbon with extremely high relative magnetic permeability (μ_r≈100 000). Two basic configurations were considered: one based on a toroidal magnetic core and the other on a rectangular core with and without an air gap. The field response and sensitivity of the fluxgate devices have been studied as a function of the gap length, the excitation current, and excitation frequency. Compared to fluxgate sensors of similar size, a relatively high sensitivity of 60 V/T was found at 30 kHz for a five-winding detection coil wound around a rectangular E-shaped magnetic core. This high performance is primarily attributable to the high-permeability magnetic core. The results clearly show the potential of this fluxgate device for application as a magnetic sensor     

Ferrite-Piezoelectric Multilayers for Magnetic Field Sensors

A magnetic field sensor based on magnetoelectric effects in a ferrite-piezoelectric layered sample is proposed. Such sensors are passive, provide direct conversion of magnetic fields into an electrical signal, and allow measurements of both ac and dc magnetic fields. A multilayer sample of nickel zinc ferrite-lead zirconate titanate has been used to characterize the sensor response to ac and dc fields, field orientations, frequency, and temperature. The sample shows a linear response for dc fields up to a maximum of 1750 Oe. The sensor output is temperature independent over 273–337 K, but is dependent on frequency of the ac excitation field. Operating at electromechanical resonance for the element enhances the sensor sensitivity by an order of magnitude. For ac magnetic field sensors, the output varies linearly with amplitude.