Magnetoimpedance Response and Field Sensitivity in Stress-Annealed Co-Based Microwires for Sensor Applications

Amorphous soft magnetic microwires have attracted much attention in the area of sensor applications due to their excellent properties. In this work, we study the influence of annealing treatments (stress and conventional) in the giant magnetoimpedance (GMI) response and the field sensitivity of the soft magnetic Co(69.2)Fe(3.6)Ni(1)B(12.5)Si(11)Mo(1.5)C(1.2) glass-coated microwires. Here we report a remarkable and simultaneous enhancement of GMI effect and field sensitivity. The highest sensitivity of 104%/Oe and the GMI response of 234% were achieved for 300 °C stress-annealed samples at 472 and 236 MPa, respectively. Additionally, we found that stress-annealed microwires exhibit a frequency dependence on maximal GMI response and field sensitivity. These findings are obtained by fine-tuning their magnetoeslastic anisotropies through stress-annealing treatments of as-prepared microwires at the proper temperature and axial applied stress upon annealing. We hope that the results presented here widen the scope of investigations for the future design of soft magnetic materials for sensor purposes.