Originally Published MPMN September 2002

INDUSTRY NEWS

Scientists Create Megagauss Sensors from Nonmagnetic Materials

Zachary Turke

A research team working at the University of Chicago (Chicago; www.uchicago.edu) have successfully combined nonmagnetic silver chalcogenides to form megagauss sensors. Discovering the material's unexpected magnetic properties while probing its glassy structure for other qualities, the scientists have employed the sensors to accurately measure ac or dc fields as strong as 600,000 G. By comparison, most conventional measurement techniques can only assess fields of up to 250,000 G without a decrease in accuracy.

Roughly the size of a pencil tip, the 1-mm³ sensors could also offer device manufacturers cost benefits. "Production costs for the sensors are quite low as the materials used are inexpensive and the manufacturing processes are straightforward," explains research team member and physics professor Thomas Rosenbaum. According to Rosenbaum, the components have possible applications in MRI equipment and other medical devices. "The sensors would be very good anywhere you need to accurately measure a magnetic field that changes a lot over a small region of space," he says.

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