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Recent experiments have discovered giant and sensitive magneto-impedance and magneto-inductive effects in FeCoSiB amorphous wires. These effects include a sensitive change in an ac wire voltage with the application of a small dc longitudinal magnetic field. At low frequencies (1–10 kHz) the inductive voltage drops by 50% for a field of 2 Oe (25%/Oe) reflecting a strong field dependence of the circumferential permeability. At higher frequencies (0.1–10 MHz) when the skin effect is essential, the amplitude of the total wire voltage decreases by 40%–60% for fields of 3–10 Oe (about 10%/Oe). These effects exhibit no hysteresis for the variation of an applied field and can be obtained even in wires of 1 mm length and a few micrometer diameter. These characteristics are very useful to constitute a highly sensitive microsensor head to detect local fields of the order of 10−5 Oe. In this paper, we review recently obtained experimental results on magneto-inductive and magneto-impedance effects and present a detailed discussion for their mechanism, developing a general approach in terms of ac complex impedance in a magnetic conductor. In the case of a strong skin effect the total wire impedance depends on the circumferential permeability through the penetration depth, resulting in the giant magneto-impedance effect.

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We analyzed and organized the reasons why the amorphous wire CMOS IC magneto-impedance sensor (MI sensor) has rapidly been mass-produced as the electronic compass chips for the smart phones, mobile phones, and the wrist watches. Comprehensive advantageous features regarding six terms of (1) microsizing and ultralow power consumption, (2) high linearity without any hysteresis for the magnetic field detection, (3) high sensitivity for magnetic field detection with a Pico-Tesla resolution, (4) quick response for detection of magnetic field, (5) high temperature stability, and (6) high reversibility against large disturbance magnetic field shock are based on the magneto-impedance effect in the amorphous wires. We have detected the biomagnetic field using the Pico-Tesla resolution MI sensor at the room temperature such as the magneto-cardiogram (MCG), the magneto-encephalogram (MEG), and the self-oscillatory magnetic field of guinea-pig stomach smooth muscles (in vitro) that suggest the origin of the biomagnetic field is probably pulsive flow of Ca2+through the muscle cell membrane.

This paper demonstrates the performance of magnetoimpedance (MI) sensors for biomagnetic field recording. The rms noise of an amorphous wire MI sensor with 600 turns of pick‐up coil was estimated as approximately 3 pT/Hz1/2 at 1 Hz. Here, we demonstrate that this sensitivity is enough to clearly detect magnetic cardiogram signals. We also measured the biomagnetic field around a smooth muscle tissue sample taken from a guinea‐pig. We discovered that the magnetic‐field waveform of a small tissue sample is similar to the voltage waveform measured by a microelectrode array in a smooth muscle sheet sample. The results suggest that the localized biomagnetic field generated by smooth muscle cells can be detected by an MI sensor. We concluded that the MI sensor is a promising device for use as a noninvasive tool to test cell activity or function through magnetic‐field measurement. (© 2009 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)