Patent ID: 7495434

Claim:
A magnetoresistive sensor element for sensing a magnetic field acting on the magnetoresistive sensor element, comprising: a first magnetic layer structure with a resistance R 1 per unit area and a first and a second main surface, wherein a first and a second contact terminal are arranged on the second main surface at a contact spacing X 0 with reference to each other; a second magnetic layer structure with a resistance R 2 per unit area and a first and a second main surface; and a barrier layer arranged between the first and the second magnetic layer structure adjacent to the first main surfaces thereof, so that the magnetoresistive sensor element comprises a resistance-area product RA, wherein, with R 1 , R 2 and RA, a characteristic length λ of the magnetoresistive sensor elements is given by λ = RA R 1 + R 2 , and wherein the contact spacing X0 comprises an m-fold value of the characteristic length λ with 0.1<m<20, and wherein the first contact terminal comprises a first edge spacing X 1 from an edge of the first magnetic layer structure with an n-fold value of the characteristic length λ with 0.5<n, and wherein the second contact terminal comprises a second edge spacing X 2 from the edge of the first magnetic layer structure with a p-fold value of the characteristic length λ with 0.5<p, and wherein the resistance R 1 comprises a q-fold value of the resistance R 2 with q<1.