Co-rich Amorphous Microwires with Improved Giant Magnetoimpedance Characteristics Due to Glass Coating Etching

Glass-coated Co-rich amorphous microwires are very promising for the development of tiny magnetic sensors that can be used in portable electronic devises. In this study, a substantial decrease in the residual quenching stress in Co-rich microwires is achieved by reducing the thickness of the glass coating by means of precise etching of the wire in a specially designed gel. This effect is confirmed experimentally by means of the small-angle magnetization rotation method as well as by direct measurement of the off-diagonal component of the giant magnetoimpedance (GMI) tensor of wires with different thicknesses of glass coating as a function of the applied magnetic field. A reduction in the thickness of the glass coating to the range of 0.5–2.0 µm resulted in a nearly twofold increase in the steepness of the off-diagonal GMI component of the studied Co-rich microwires. Therefore, this method can be used to improve the sensitivity of miniature magnetic sensors to weak external magnetic fields.