Dr. Andre Guedes
BSAC Postdoctoral Researcher, UC Davis
October 20, 2009 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 521 Cory Hall, Hogan Room
Host: David Horsley
Highly sensitive magnetoresistive (MR) sensors were integrated together with MEMS resonators to achieve two important goals: to improve the magnetoresistive sensor static field sensitivity down to the picoTesla range, and to provide on-chip magnetic detection of resonance in MEMS. This MR-MEMS hybrid device enhances the static magnetic field sensitivity of the MR sensor through the cancellation of its 1/f noise. By using high frequency MEMS resonators with incorporated magnetic flux guides, an external static can be modulated to high frequency where the 1/f noise in MR sensors vanishes, providing an improvement of up to 3 orders of magnitude in field sensitivity. With this hybrid device it is possible to enter the picoTesla static field detection region, making it suitable for medical applications such as magnetoencephalography. This device can also be used as a MEMS resonance detector. By incorporating a permanent magnet on top of the MEMS resonator, it is possible to monitor its movement through the output of the integrated MR sensor.
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