Properties of giant magneto-impedance material for a novel integrating magnetic sensor

A novel magnetic field sensor, based on the giant magneto-impedance effect is described and analysed. The sensor utilises an amorphous wire, annealed under optimised conditions. The conditions required for the optimisation of the magnetic properties of the wire are shown. The wire can be up to 2m long, and integrates the field over the length of the wire. It operates in open-loop mode. With a bias field of similar to 500 A/m it achieves a sensitivity of 0.02 A/m and linearity of better than 5% for external fields between +/-300 A/m.