Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 March 2005
The pick-up coil of a conventional flux-gate sensor has beenreplaced by a magnetic tunnel junction. With this respect, themagnetic properties of tunnel junctions have been optimized to berelevant to flux-gate operation i.e. low-coercitive field andreproducibility of the dynamic switchings. Furthermore, the use ofan alternative two-dimensional magnetic driving field extends theuse of the flux-gate like sensor to make a 2D magnetometer with asingle magnetic tunnel junction without any cross sensitivity. Afirst demonstration is given with sensitivity above 500 V/T anda noise level evaluated to 2 $\rm \mu T/ \sqrt{Hz}$ with an optimizedmagnetoresistive response.