Abstract
This paper describes a MEMS-based micro-fluxgate magnetic sensing element using Ni$\_$0.8/Fe$\_$0.2/ film formed by electroplating. The micro-fluxgate magnetic sensor composed of a thin film magnetic core and micro-structured solenoids for the pick-up and the excitation coils, is developed by using MEMS technologies in order to take advantage of low-cost, small size and lower power consumption in the fabrication. A copper with 20um width and 3um thickness is electroplated on Cr(300${\AA}$)/Au(1500${\AA}$) films for the pick-up(42turn) and the excitation(24turn) coils. In order to improve the sensitivity of the sensing element, we designed the magnetic core into a rectangular-ring shape to reduce the magnetic flux leakage. An electroplated permalloy film with the thickness of 3 $\mu\textrm{m}$ is obtained under 2000Gauss to induce magnetic anisotropy. The magnetic core has the high DC effective permeability of ∼1,100 and coercive field of -0.1Oe. The fabricated sensing element using rectangular-ring shaped magnetic film has the sensitivity of about 150V/T at the excitation frequency of 2MHz and the excitation voltage of 4.4Vp-p. The power consumption is estimated to be 50mW.