Investigation on optimal materials selection in RTD-Fluxgate Design

The aim of this paper is to present experimental results, along with analytical calculations, on different prototypes of RTD fluxgate using a set of three ferromagnetic materials. The residence times difference approach is based on the time domain characterization of the transitions between the stable steady states of the hysteresis loop whose features are related to the external magnetic field to be measured. Experiments and studies reported in the following sections aim to give guidelines for the optimal system design in terms of sensitivity and power budget, exploiting the features of the ferromagnetic materials used as core. The prototypes developed at the DIEES of the Engineering Faculty in Catania and used during the experiments represent test vehicles. Moreover they allow the validation of the theoretical considerations made on the subject in view of future integrated realizations of fluxgates with RTD readout strategy to demonstrate how a suitable choice of the core material can improve the devices performances