Engineering of Giant Magnetoimpedance Effect of Amorphous and Nanocrystalline Microwires

We present an overview of the factors affecting soft magnetic properties and giant magnetoimpedance (GMI) effect of thin amorphous wires. Low coercivity and high GMI effect have been observed in as-prepared Co-rich microwires. We showed that the magnetoelastic anisotropy is one of the most important parameters that determines the magnetic softness and GMI effect of glass-coated microwires, and annealing can be very effective for manipulation of the magnetic properties of amorphous ferromagnetic glass-coated microwires. After annealing of Co-rich microwires, we can observe the transformation of inclined hysteresis loops to rectangle and coexistence of fast magnetization switching and GMI effect in the same sample. We demonstrated that the switching field value of microwires can be tailored by annealing in the range from 4 to 200 A/m. On the other hand in Fe-rich FeCuNbSiB microwires after appropriate annealing, we observed considerable magnetic softening and GMI effect enhancement.