High sensitivity face shear magneto-electric composite array for weak magnetic field sensing

© 2020 Author(s). A magnetic field sensor is designed and fabricated using a piezoelectric face shear mode Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbTiO3 (PMN-PT)/Metglas magneto-electric (ME) composite. An outstanding ME coupling coefficient up to 1600 V/(cm Oe) was experimentally achieved, being ∼50% higher than the value from the extensional PMN-PT/Metglas ME composite with the same volume. The detection limit was found to be 2 × 10-6 Oe for the DC magnetic field, while it was 2 × 10-8 Oe for the AC magnetic field. The sensitivity of the face shear mode PMN-PT/Metglas ME composite is about one order of magnitude higher than that of a 32 extensional mode PMN-PT/Metglas based ME composite in sensing a weak DC magnetic field. A sensing array was also designed based on the ME composite to image weak DC magnetic fields, demonstrating a great potential promising for sensing weak magnetic fields.