Characteristics of the dual-bridge giant magnetoresistance magnetometer.

The responsivity and the field noise characteristics of the giant magnetoresistance (GMR) magnetometer driven by an alternating magnetic field are investigated. The harmonic spectrum of the sensor voltage shows that only the odd harmonics of excitation frequency are sensitive to the external dc field. To cancel out the even harmonics, the dual-bridge GMR magnetometer with the balanced output is proposed. With the dual-bridge configuration, the field-to-voltage transfer coefficient is doubled and the field noise is reduced by a factor of 1.4. The minimum field noise is 7 nT∕√Hz at 1 Hz with the ac excitation power of 5.5 mW. The proposed sensor is suitable for the electronic compass application.