MAGNETIC NANOWIRE BASED SENSORS

The paper describes a challenge of innovation in the field magnetic sensing devices. The main idea is the use of magnetic nanowires as sensors for electric or nonelectric quantities. Two main problems have to be solved: contacting the nanowires and their reduced sensitivity. Thus, custom templates are obtained using an ion microprobe or a single ion irradiation facility to irradiate polycarbonate foils. After etching the ion tracks and after filling the resulting nanopores with desired metals, contacts are added using sputtering through masks or etching the previously Cu deposited layer like in PCB. Using nanowires as sensitive elements the achievement of two sensors will be demonstrated: a current sensor using single nanowire and an angular sensor using two technical solutions. The current sensor will be based on a single nanowire embedded in a polycarbonate (PC) foil. The angular sensor uses 8 magnetic nanowires or groups of nanowires connected in parallel, equidistant placed on a circle and connected in two Wheatstone bridges.