Fluxgate magnetometers with a new excitation method based on magnetoelectric interaction

The analysis of the functional peculiarities of the known flux gates has shown that the constructive and technological methods used to increase their operational characteristics within the framework of traditional solutions have basically exhausted themselves. The paper proposes a method for exciting flux gates based on a new physical principle relying on the effect of magnetoelectric interaction. The possibility of obtaining a magnetoelectric effect in local inhomogeneities of solid-state structures of ferrite elements of flux-gates when exposed to an alternating electric field is analyzed and substantiated. In this case, in the entire volume of the ferromagnetic core at the same frequencies of electromechanical and magnetic resonances, a modulating physical process is excited in the form of a standing magnetoelectric wave. This creates a corresponding magnetic modulation structure in the entire volume of the ferromagnetic system of the flux gate. The considered design of a fluxgate modulator implements a new method of exciting flux gates, containing a ferromagnetic rod system in the form of two ferrite rod half-elements, located coaxially and joined together by a ferrite permanent magnet with magnetization along the axis of the rods. The authors have experimentally studies a new method for exciting flux gates. The proposed method for exciting flux gates opens up wide opportunities for research in a new direction in science - spintronics, in particular, the applied use of magnetoelectric interaction, which can be effectively used to create various options for flux gates based on new physical principles of operation.