Anders Dahl Henriksen

Planar Hall effect bridge magnetic field sensors

Until now, the planar Hall effect has been studied in samples with cross-shaped Hall geometry. We demonstrate theoretically and experimentally that the planar Hall effect can be observed for an exchange-biased ferromagnetic material in a Wheatstone bridge topology and that the sensor signal can be significantly enhanced by a geometric factor. For the samples in the present study, we demonstrate an enhancement of the sensor output by a factor of about 100 compared to cross-shaped sensors. The presented construction opens a new design and application area of the planar Hall effect, which we term planar Hall effect bridge sensors.

On the importance of sensor height variation for detection of magnetic labels by magnetoresistive sensors.

Magnetoresistive sensors are widely used for biosensing by detecting the signal from magnetic labels bound to a functionalized area that usually covers the entire sensor structure. Magnetic labels magnetized by a homogeneous applied magnetic field weaken and strengthen the applied field when they are over and outside the sensor area, respectively, and the detailed origin of the sensor signal in experimental studies has not been clarified. We systematically analyze the signal from both a single sensor stripe and an array of sensor stripes as function of the geometrical parameters of the sensor stripes as well as the distribution of magnetic labels over the stripes. We show that the signal from sensor stripes with a uniform protective coating, contrary to conventional wisdom in the field, is usually dominated by the contribution from magnetic labels between the sensor stripes rather than by the labels on top of the sensor stripes because these are at a lower height. We therefore propose a shift of paradigm to maximize the signal due to magnetic labels between sensor stripes. Guidelines for this optimization are provided and illustrated for an experimental case from the literature.

Planar Hall effect bridge geometries optimized for magnetic bead detection

Novel designs of planar Hall effect bridge sensors optimized for magnetic bead detection are presented and characterized. By constructing the sensor geometries appropriately, the sensors can be tailored to be sensitive to an external magnetic field, the magnetic field due to beads being magnetized by the sensor self-field or a combination thereof. The sensors can be made nominally insensitive to small external magnetic fields, while being maximally sensitive to magnetic beads, magnetized by the sensor self-field. Thus, the sensor designs can be tailored towards specific applications with minimal influence of external variables. Three different sensor designs are analyzed theoretically. To experimentally validate the theoretical signals, two sets of measurements are performed. First, the sensor signals are characterized as function of an externally applied magnetic field. Then, measurements of the dynamic magnetic response of suspensions of magnetic beads with a nominal diameter of 80 nm are performed. Fur...

Planar Hall effect bridge sensors with NiFe/Cu/IrMn stack optimized for self-field magnetic bead detection

The stack composition in trilayer Planar Hall effect bridge sensors is investigated experimentally to identify the optimal stack for magnetic bead detection using the sensor self-field. The sensors were fabricated using exchange-biased stacks Ni80Fe20(tFM)/Cu(tCu)/Mn80Ir20(10 nm) with tFM = 10, 20, and 30 nm, and 0 ≤ tCu ≤ 0.6 nm. The sensors were characterized by magnetic hysteresis measurements, by measurements of the sensor response vs. applied field, and by measurements of the sensor response to a suspension of magnetic beads magnetized by the sensor self-field due to the sensor bias current. The exchange bias field was found to decay exponentially with tCu and inversely with tFM. The reduced exchange field for larger values of tFM and tCu resulted in higher sensitivities to both magnetic fields and magnetic beads. We argue that the maximum magnetic bead signal is limited by Joule heating of the sensors and, thus, that the magnetic stacks should be compared at constant power consumption. For a fixed s...

Geometrical optimization of microstripe arrays for microbead magnetophoresis.

Manipulation of magnetic beads plays an increasingly important role in molecular diagnostics. Magnetophoresis is a promising technique for selective transportation of magnetic beads in lab-on-a-chip systems. We investigate periodic arrays of exchange-biased permalloy microstripes fabricated using a single lithography step. Magnetic beads can be continuously moved across such arrays by combining the spatially periodic magnetic field from microstripes with a rotating external magnetic field. By measuring and modeling the magnetophoresis properties of thirteen different stripe designs, we study the effect of the stripe geometry on the magnetophoretic transport properties of the magnetic microbeads between the stripes. We show that a symmetric geometry with equal width of and spacing between the microstripes facilitates faster transportation and that the optimal period of the periodic stripe array is approximately three times the height of the bead center over the microstripes.

Comment on “Planar Hall resistance ring sensor based on NiFe/Cu/IrMn trilayer structure” [J. Appl. Phys. 113, 063903 (2013)]

[J. Appl. Phys. 113, 063903 (2013)] DTU Orbit (26/01/2019) Comment on “Planar Hall resistance ring sensor based on NiFe/Cu/IrMn trilayer structure” [J. Appl. Phys. 113, 063903 (2013)] In a recent paper, Sinha et al. compared sensitivities of planar Hall effect sensors with different geometries that are all based on the anisotropic magnetoresistance of permalloy. They write that the sensitivity of a planar Hall effect sensor with a ring geometry is a factor of √2 larger than the sensitivity of the so-called planar Hall effect bridge (PHEB) sensor of equal size. Osterberg et al do not agree on the signal calculation for a ring sensor derived by Sinha et al. and claim that this adversely affects the results.

Configurational Statistics of Magnetic Bead Detection with Magnetoresistive Sensors

Magnetic biosensors detect magnetic beads that, mediated by a target, have bound to a functionalized area. This area is often larger than the area of the sensor. Both the sign and magnitude of the average magnetic field experienced by the sensor from a magnetic bead depends on the location of the bead relative to the sensor. Consequently, the signal from multiple beads also depends on their locations. Thus, a given coverage of the functionalized area with magnetic beads does not result in a given detector response, except on the average, over many realizations of the same coverage. We present a systematic theoretical analysis of how this location-dependence affects the sensor response. The analysis is done for beads magnetized by a homogeneous in-plane magnetic field. We determine the expected value and standard deviation of the sensor response for a given coverage, as well as the accuracy and precision with which the coverage can be determined from a single sensor measurement. We show that statistical fluctuations between samples may reduce the sensitivity and dynamic range of a sensor significantly when the functionalized area is larger than the sensor area. Hence, the statistics of sampling is essential to sensor design. For illustration, we analyze three important published cases for which statistical fluctuations are dominant, significant, and insignificant, respectively.

Experimental comparison of ring and diamond shaped planar Hall effect bridge magnetic field sensors

Planar Hall effect magnetic field sensors with ring and diamond shaped geometries are experimentally compared with respect to their magnetic field sensitivity and total signal variation. Theoretically, diamond shaped sensors are predicted to be 41% more sensitive than corresponding ring shaped sensors for negligible shape anisotropy. To experimentally validate this, we have fabricated both sensor geometries in the exchange-biased stack Ni80Fe20(tFM)/Cu(tCu)/Mn80Ir20(10 nm) with tFM=10, 20, and 30 nm and tCu=0, 0.3, and 0.6 nm. Sensors from each stack were characterized by external magnetic field sweeps, which were analyzed in terms of a single domain model. The total signal variation of the diamond sensors was generally found to be about 40% higher than that for the ring sensors in agreement with theoretical predictions. However, for the low-field sensitivity, the corresponding improvement varied from 0% to 35% where the largest improvement was observed for sensor stacks with comparatively strong exchange...