The piezoresistive effect enables highly sensitive sensors for mechanical quantities such as elongation, force and pressure. Known materials are semiconductors and granular metals, in which the band gap or the electron tunneling allows the sensor effect. But there is another material class that is still little researched for this sensor technology: antiferromagnetic metals such as chromium. In them, external mechanical influences influence the magnetic structure, which in turn changes the electrical resistance of the material. This results in high sensitivities of these well-conductive and robust metallic layers. After we have already investigated this effect for chromium thin films, in the current research project we extend the material range to other metal alloys, investigate the sensitivity, their temperature dependence from the cryo- to high-temperature range, and their stability.
AFM-DMS
Strain-resistance effect of metallic sensor layers in antiferromagnetic state