2.Materials

Materials for Magnetoelectric Sensors

Analyzing material in the clean room (J. Haaks, CAU)

The central component of all sensors is a material that reacts to magnetic fields. In the simplest case, this is a material that emits an electrical signal when under influence of a magnetic field. As natural materials only show this effect at extremely low temperatures and with low signal strength magnetoelectric composite materials are used in the CRC 1261.

Due to clever combination of materials the magnetoelectric effects can be improved significantly. It is, for example, possible to get a composite material that provides sufficiently strong signals for an electrical signal processing even at room temperature by stacking magnetically active (magnetostrictive) and electrically active (piezoelectric) materials.

There are many possibilities to merge the two materials into a composite material. One way is to simply stack thin layers. You can also position blocks next to each other, fill tubes with another material or incorporate particles into a matrix. To figure out which procedure is most effective for each combination of materials is part of the research in the CRC 1261.