APPLICATIONS OF ASYMMETRIC HYSTERESIS LOOPS IN AMORPHOUS ALLOYS

The use of amorphous magnetic alloys as tags or targets in electronic article surveillance systems such as antishoplifting desvices is briefly reviewed. Improved tags became possible with the discovery in 1988 of asymmetric magnetization reversal (AMR) in certain amorphous alloys annealed in applied field approximately equal to the earth's field. These asymmetric hysteresis loops are highly unusual, if not unique, and so greatly diminish the probability of false alarms in a detection system. furthermore, the jump field Hj, which is the coercive field in negative applied fields, can be controlled over a useful range by controlling the field applied to the sample during annealing. By applying several tags to an object, each with a different jump field, it is possible to identify the object with a numeric code that can be remotely read by nonoptical means.