Disclosure of Invention
The invention aims to provide a TMR full-bridge sensor with a single chip and a preparation method thereof, wherein the TMR full-bridge sensor can reduce the preparation process difficulty and the production cost.
In order to achieve the above object, the present invention adopts the following technical solutions:
The TMR full-bridge magnetic sensor comprises a substrate and TMR units arranged on the substrate, wherein the TMR units comprise a free layer, a pinning layer and a tunnel layer, 4 groups of TMR units are connected in a bridge mode to form a full-bridge structure, the 4 groups of TMR units are respectively positioned on 4 bridge arms of the full-bridge structure, the length-width ratio of the TMR units is not equal to 1, long axes of the TMR units positioned on adjacent bridge arms are mutually perpendicular, and long axes of the TMR units positioned on opposite bridge arms are mutually parallel.
Further, the aspect ratio of the TMR cell is >10.
Further, the TMR cell has a rectangular or elliptical shape.
Further, the long axis direction of the TMR unit is parallel to the direction of the bridge arm where the TMR unit is located.
Further, the substrate is further provided with 4 electrodes, including a pair of input electrodes and a pair of output electrodes, each electrode is respectively connected with two adjacent bridge arms.
Further, the magnetic moment directions of the pinned layers of the TMR units on the adjacent bridge arms are different, and the magnetic moment directions of the pinned layers of the opposite TMR units on the bridge arms are the same.
According to the technical scheme, TMR units on the full-bridge structure are arranged according to the long axis direction of the TMR units, so that the long axis directions of the TMR units on adjacent bridge arms are mutually perpendicular, and the long axis directions of the TMR units on opposite bridge arms are mutually parallel, so that the full-bridge structure is formed on a single chip at one time by applying an external magnetic field with a specific angle during magnetic field annealing, and the difficulty and the production cost of the single-chip full-bridge magnetic sensor manufacturing process are greatly reduced. The magnetic moment directions of the TMR unit pinning layers on the adjacent bridge arms of the full-bridge magnetic sensor obtained after annealing are different, and the magnetic moment directions of the TMR unit pinning layers on the opposite bridge arms are basically the same, so that the TMR units on the adjacent bridge arms have opposite responses to the same sensitive direction, and opposite magnetic resistance corresponding trends are formed for an external field, and differential output of magnetic field detection is realized.
The invention also provides a preparation method of the TMR full-bridge magnetic sensor, which comprises the following steps:
Providing a substrate;
Depositing TMR units and electrodes on the substrate, wherein 4 groups of TMR units are in bridge connection to form a full-bridge structure, each bridge arm of the full-bridge structure is provided with a group of TMR units, long axes of the TMR units on adjacent bridge arms are mutually perpendicular, and long axes of the TMR units on opposite bridge arms are mutually parallel;
and carrying out magnetic field annealing treatment on the TMR units, wherein an included angle of 45 degrees is formed between the direction of a magnetic field applied during annealing and the long axis direction of the TMR units, after the annealing is finished, the magnetic moment directions of the pinning layers of the TMR units on adjacent bridge arms are different, and the magnetic moment directions of the pinning layers of the TMR units on opposite bridge arms are the same.
Drawings
In order to more clearly illustrate the embodiments of the present invention, the following description will briefly explain the embodiments or the drawings required for the description of the prior art, it being obvious that the drawings in the following description are only some embodiments of the present invention and that other drawings may be obtained according to these drawings without inventive effort to a person skilled in the art.
Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of the structure of a TMR cell in a TMR magnetoresistive sensor;
FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of the magnetic moment direction of the pinned layer of the free layer of a TMR cell;
FIG. 3 is a graph showing the resistance of a TMR cell and the magnetic moment direction of the free and pinned layers as a function of applied magnetic field;
FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of the relative relationship of the magnetic moment directions of the free layer and the pinned layer;
FIG. 5a is a schematic diagram showing the change of the magnetic moment direction of the free layer under the action of an externally applied magnetic field when the magnetic moment directions of the free layer and the pinned layer are parallel in the same direction;
FIG. 5b is a graph showing the relationship between resistance and field strength of TMR cells with parallel magnetic moment directions of the free layer and the pinned layer under the action of an applied magnetic field;
FIG. 6a is a schematic diagram showing the change in the magnetic moment direction of the free layer under the action of an externally applied magnetic field when the magnetic moment directions of the free layer and the pinned layer are antiparallel;
FIG. 6b is a graph of resistance versus applied field strength for TMR cells with antiparallel magnetic moment directions of the free and pinned layers;
FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram of an embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram showing the magnetization directions of the pinned layers of the TMR cell of example 4 of the present invention after annealing;
FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram of a Wheatstone full bridge circuit in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;
Fig. 10 is a graph showing the magnetic resistance change trend of two adjacent TMR cells under the action of an external magnetic field applied in the y-axis direction according to the embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 11 is a graph showing the trend of output voltage under the action of an external magnetic field applied along the y-axis direction according to the embodiment of the present invention.
Detailed Description
To make the above and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention more apparent, the following detailed description of the embodiments of the present invention will be given with reference to the accompanying drawings.
Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a TMR cell structure in a TMR type sensor, and as shown in fig. 1, the TMR cell includes a free layer, a tunnel layer 3, and a pinned layer 4 in this order from top to bottom, arrow 2 indicates a magnetic moment direction of the free layer 1, and arrow 5 indicates a magnetic moment direction of the pinned layer. As shown in fig. 2, in the absence of an externally applied magnetic field, the magnetic moment direction 2 of the free layer and the magnetic moment direction 5 of the pinned layer 4 of the TMR cell are perpendicular to each other. When an external magnetic field 6 is applied, the magnetic moment direction 5 of the pinning layer 4 is not responsive to the external magnetic field 6 within the detection magnetic field range of the magnetic sensor, and the magnitude and direction of the magnetic moment direction 5 of the free layer 1 do not change with the change of the external magnetic field 6, while the magnetic moment direction 2 of the free layer 1 is sensitive to the external magnetic field 6, and the magnitude and direction of the magnetic moment direction are changed with the change of the external magnetic field 6.
As shown in fig. 3 (R in fig. 3 represents the resistance value of the TMR cell, H represents the field strength of the applied magnetic field), the resistance value of the TMR cell and the magnetic moment direction 2 of the free layer 1 are related to the relative magnetization state of the magnetic moment direction 5 of the pinned layer 4. The resistance of the TMR cell is smallest when the magnetic moment direction 2 of the free layer 1 and the magnetic moment direction 5 of the pinned layer 4 are co-parallel, and largest when the magnetic moment direction 2 of the free layer 1 and the magnetic moment direction 5 of the pinned layer 4 are anti-parallel.
Under the action of the externally applied magnetic field 6 shown in fig. 4, the magnetic moment direction 2 of the free layer, which is parallel to the magnetic moment direction 5 of the pinned layer, is flipped as shown in fig. 5a, the resistance of the corresponding TMR cell is changed as shown in fig. 5b, while the magnetic moment direction 2' of the free layer, which is antiparallel to the magnetic moment direction 5 of the pinned layer, is flipped as shown in fig. 6a, and the resistance of the corresponding TMR cell is changed as shown in fig. 6 b. That is, when the relative relationship between the magnetic moment direction of the free layer and the magnetic moment direction of the pinned layer is different, the same external magnetic field is applied, and the resistance of the TMR unit will generate different variation trends, when the magnetic moment direction 2 of the free layer is biased in parallel with the magnetic moment direction 5 of the pinned layer and in anti-parallel with the magnetic moment direction 5 of the pinned layer, the same external magnetic field is applied, and the two will show opposite resistance variation trends.
Fig. 7 is a schematic structural diagram of a TMR full-bridge sensor according to an embodiment of the present invention, as shown in fig. 7, 4 sets of TMR cells (a 1, a2, a3, a 4) and 4 electrodes (P1, P2, P3, P4) are deposited on a substrate (not shown) of the sensor, each set of TMR cells having the same structure and having a free layer, a pinned layer and a tunnel layer. The 4 groups of TMR units are connected in a bridge mode to form a full-bridge structure, the 4 groups of TMR units are respectively located on 4 bridge arms of the full-bridge structure, and each electrode is respectively connected with two adjacent bridge arms. Of the 4 electrodes, one pair of electrodes (P1, P3) is an input electrode, and the other pair of electrodes (P2, P4) is an output electrode. The TMR cells of the present invention are not equal in length and width, i.e., the aspect ratio of the TMR cells is not equal to 1, and the shape of the TMR cells may be rectangular or elliptical. For convenience of explanation, the center line of the TMR cell in the longitudinal direction is defined as the long axis, and the long axis direction of the TMR cell and the direction of the leg where it is located are parallel. In order to ensure a large shape anisotropy field inside the TMR cell, the aspect ratio of the TMR cell should be large so that the shape anisotropy field in the free layer is larger than the influence of the external magnetic field. If the aspect ratio of the TMR cell is small, the internal shape anisotropy field is too small to balance with the applied annealing field, and the magnetic moment direction of the annealed pinned layer will be along the applied field direction, so that bridge connection cannot be formed. Preferably, the aspect ratio of the TMR cell may be greater than 10. The specific value of the aspect ratio of the TMR cell is an empirical value and is also related to the formulation of the free layer, and thus can be set according to different situations.
TMR units on 4 bridge arms are opposite to each other, wherein long axes of adjacent TMR units are perpendicular to each other, and long axes of opposite TMR units are parallel to each other. The direction of the anisotropy field inside the TMR cell is along the long axis direction of the TMR cell, and since the long axis direction of the TMR cell is different, the direction of the shape anisotropy field inside the TMR cell is also different. The TMR units in the full-bridge structure are arranged according to the long axis direction of the TMR units, when annealing is performed, an external magnetic field with a specific angle is applied (the direction of the external magnetic field is along the diagonal direction of the TMR full-bridge structure, namely, the included angle between the external magnetic field and the long axis direction of the TMR units is 45 degrees), the internal magnetic moment of the TMR units is subjected to the combined action of the external magnetic field and the internal shape anisotropy field, the magnetization direction of the pinning layer is changed according to the arrangement direction (long axis direction) of the TMR units, and therefore, the pinning layers of the TMR units can correspondingly form different magnetic moment directions.
The preparation method of the TMR full-bridge sensor comprises the following steps:
Providing a substrate;
Depositing 4 groups of TMR units and electrodes on the substrate, for example, forming a TMR unit on the substrate by magnetron sputtering, wherein the 4 groups of TMR units are in bridge connection to form a full-bridge structure and are connected with an input electrode and an output electrode, the TMR units are positioned on bridge arms of the full-bridge structure, long axes of the TMR units on adjacent bridge arms are mutually perpendicular, long axes of the TMR units on opposite bridge arms are mutually parallel, as shown in figure 7, two diagonal lines in the full-bridge structure are respectively defined as an x axis and a y axis, namely, a direction from P3 to P1 is the y axis, a direction from P4 to P2 is the x axis, x1 is a direction forming an included angle of 45 degrees with the x axis, y1 is a direction forming an included angle of 45 degrees with the y axis, and when the TMR units are deposited, long axes of TMR units a1 and a3 are parallel to an x 1 axis, and long axes of TMR units a2 and a4 are parallel to a y 1 axis;
The TMR cells are subjected to a magnetic field annealing treatment, as shown in fig. 8, in which an applied magnetic field 9 is applied, and the direction of the applied magnetic field 9 is along the x-axis direction or the y-axis direction, that is, the direction of the applied magnetic field 9 and the long axis direction of the TMR cells form an angle of 45 °, so that the 4-group TMR cells can form a symmetrical magnetic moment distribution. After annealing, the magnetization directions mp of the pinned layers of the 4 groups of TMR cells are as shown in FIG. 8, the magnetic moment directions of the pinned layers of adjacent TMR cells are different, and the magnetic moment directions of the pinned layers of opposite TMR cells are the same. The term "the magnetic moment directions of the pinned layers of the opposite TMR cells are identical" in the present invention does not mean only the case where the magnetic moment directions of the pinned layers of the opposite TMR cells are exactly identical, but also includes the case where the magnetic moment directions of the pinned layers of the opposite TMR cells are substantially identical.
Taking this embodiment as an example, when an externally applied magnetic field along the y-axis direction is applied to the sensor, the resistances of different TMR cells change differently, and since the magnetization directions of the pinned layers of adjacent TMR cells have opposite components along the y-axis, the magnetization directions of the pinned layers of opposite TMR cells have the same component along the y-axis, and thus the magneto-resistance change trend of the adjacent TMR cells in the y-axis direction is opposite, the adjacent TMR cells have opposite responses to the same sensitive direction, and a full bridge output is formed. The method can deposit the full-bridge structure on the same chip at one time, thereby greatly reducing the difficulty and cost of the production process.
As shown in FIG. 9, R1, R2, R3 and R4 in FIG. 9 respectively represent the magneto-resistors of four groups of TMR cells a1, a2, a3 and a4, and when constant bias voltage is applied to the two ends (P1 and P3) of the full-bridge structure, the voltage output of the full-bridge circuit is thatIn the full bridge sensor structure, the magnetic resistance changes (R1, R3) of a1, a3 are opposite to the magnetic resistance changes (R2, R4) of a2, a4, for example, when the resistance of R1 and R3 increases under the action of an external magnetic field, the resistance of R2 and R4 decreases and the voltage output increases.
Fig. 10 is a graph showing the variation trend of the magnetic resistance of TMR cells a1, a2 to the applied magnetic field along the y-axis direction in the sensor, a constant voltage is applied to the input electrodes (P1, P2) of the full bridge sensor, and the trend of the output voltage of the sensor output electrodes (P2, P4) is shown in fig. 11 when the magnetic field along the y-axis direction is varied.
The previous description of the disclosed embodiments is provided to enable any person skilled in the art to make or use the present invention. Various modifications to these embodiments will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art, and the generic principles defined herein may be applied to other embodiments without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention. Thus, the present invention is not intended to be limited to the embodiments shown herein but is to be accorded the widest scope consistent with the principles and novel features disclosed herein.