Patent ID: 9123875
Filing Date: 2015-09-01
Classification: B82Y,G01R,H01L

Abstract:
1. A thin-film magnetoresistive sensor element for detecting a magnetic field component perpendicular to a plane of a substrate of its deposition, comprising: a ferromagnetic free layer in which an intrinsic easy axis of a material of the ferromagnetic free layer is set perpendicular to the plane of the substrate onto which the ferromagnetic free layer is deposited, a ferromagnetic reference layer, wherein magnetization of the ferromagnetic reference layer is constrained to lie perpendicular to the plane of the substrate, Wherein the ferromagnetic reference layer comprising a ferromagnetic material with perpendicular anisotropy and shape such that the ferromagnetic reference layer has a higher coercivity than the ferromagnetic free layer, a spacer layer between said ferromagnetic free layer and ferromagnetic reference layer, wherein the space layer, comprising either an insulating or a conducting material, an electronic system coupled to the array of the sensor element to be used to deconvolute response of the array of the sensor element into a coordinate system describing two or three orthogonal magnetic field directions, and wherein each sensor element is deposited on the same substrate, and patterned into a collection of shapes, each of which has a different sensitivity to magnetic fields applied along two or more oblique axes.