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This dissertation proposes a miniaturized optical fiber based sensor system for the measurement of 3-dimensional vector magnetic fields. The operation of the sensor system is based on the detection of magnetostrictive dimensional changes in the sensor gage using a modified extrinsic Fabry-Perot Interferometer configuration. Because of the magnetostrictive reflector the gap length depends on the magnetic fields applied to the sensor. Since the diameter of the magnetostrictive sensor gage is 125 micrometer which is the same as that of the input/output fiber, the sensor is simply constructed by inserting the sensor gage and the input/output fiber into a small glass tube. The glass tube serves as both an aligner for the sensor gage and input/out fiber, and a passive temperature compensator. In addition, it also enhances the mechanical strength and compactness of the sensor. This sensor design shows 98 percent suppression of the thermally induced sensor output changes. The linear output of the sensor system is enhanced by transverse field annealing which increases magnetostrictive induction in the ferromagnetic sensor gage material and controls the sensor gage geometry. A 5-times increase in sensor sensitivity is obtained with the transverse field annealing and the use of a new magnetostrictive material. A modified sensor gage endface demonstrates 92 percent of fringe visibility, which further improves the performance of the interferometer. The signal fading in the interferometric sensors at the peak or bottom of a fringe is reduced by using a quadrature signal demodulation method. The system has been shown to have a resolution better than 100 nT over a measurement range from 100 to 40,000 nT. This research is supported financially by the Phillips Laboratory of the U.S. Air Force. / Ph. D.

Micromirrors and diffraction gratings were developed for spectroscopy and magnetic field sensor in this thesis. MEMS blazed gratings were successfully fabricated in different grating periodicities to cover a wide infrared wavelength range. Lorentz force actuated micromirrors were investigated, and two types of mirrors were fabricated: rotating and pop-up micromirrors. The deflection angle of the mirrors was controllable by altering the driving current on the mirror. Deflection angle vs. driving current was studied for different mirror types and different spring dimensions. A Lorentz force based magnetic field sensor is also demonstrated. The sensor employs the rotating micromirror as a resonator. With an AC current flowing around the micromirror, a periodic Lorentz force is generated which drives the resonator. The rotational amplitude of the micromirror is measured with an optical positioning system and external circuits. The highest resolution of the magnetic field sensor is 0.4 nT at 50 mArms, and 53 mHz filter bandwidth. With appropriate current level, this sensor can measure a wide range of magnetic field, from nT to T. / October 2016

La magnétorésistance anisotrope (AMR) des matériaux ferromagnétiques est largement utilisée comme le phénomène de base pour la mesure ou la détection de champ magnétique. En raison de la relation entre la configuration en domaines magnétiques et la résistivité macroscopique, l'application d'un champ magnétique externe modifie la résistivité des matériaux ferromagnétiques. Bien que cet effet soit largement utilisé dans des applications industrielles, certains aspects fondamentaux du comportement AMR sont encore assez mal compris. Par exemple, le rôle de la texture cristallographique dans le comportement effectif n'est pas décrit avec précision par les outils classiques de modélisation. En raison de ce lien direct entre la microstructure en domaines et l'effet AMR, les modèles de description de l'effet AMR reposent généralement sur des calculs micromagnétiques. Pour ces calculs, le nombre de degrés de liberté et d'interactions peuvent se multiplier rapidement si on recherche à décrire un comportement macroscopique (cas des polycristaux par exemple).La thèse porte sur la modélisation numérique de l'effet de magnétorésistance anisotrope des matériaux ferromagnétiques. Ce nouvel outil de modélisation 3D peut remédier à cet inconvénient majeur des approches micromagnétiques. Un modèle permettant de décrire les effets de couplage magnéto-élastique en utilisant une approche micro-macro est disponible au laboratoire GeePs. Sur la base des mêmes principes de la modélisation micro-macro, un outil de simulation de l'effet AMR en fonction de la contrainte mécanique et de la texture cristallographique des matériaux a été développé.La stratégie de modélisation est la suivante:Trois échelles de description du comportement sont introduites: le Volume Elémentaire Représentatif (VER) polycristallin (échelle macro), le monocristal ou grain, et enfin le domaine magnétique (échelle micro).Une première étape dite de localisation permet de déterminer le chargement magnéto-mécanique (champ magnétique et contrainte mécanique) à l'échelle d'un grain en fonction du chargement extérieur appliqué. L'introduction de variables internes et des lois d'évolution correspondantes permet de décrire de façon statistique l'évolution de la microstructure en domaines magnétiques sous l'influence de ce chargement local. Toujours à cette échelle, l'utilisation du modèle phénoménologique de Doring permet, pour chaque domaine, de calculer la résistivité en fonction de l'orientation relative entre aimantation locale et courant électrique. Une fois cette résistivité locale connue, une étape dite d'homogénéisation s'appuyant sur le modèle de Bruggeman permet de déterminer la résistivité macroscopique du VER polycristallin. Il est ainsi possible de prédire la variation de la résistivité entre un état initial désaimanté et un état sous chargement magnéto-mécanique quelconque.Les résultats obtenus par cette démarche ont été comparés avec succès à des résultats expérimentaux extraits de la littérature portant sur des polycristaux de Nickel, de Fer pur ou encore de Permalloy.Ensuite des simulations reproduisant les conditions de fonctionnement des capteurs AMR ont été effectuées. Ces simulations permettent de conclure qu'il est possible d'améliorer la sensibilité des capteurs AMR en générant une contrainte résiduelle biaxiale. / The anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) of ferromagnetic materials is widely used as the basic phenomenon for measuring or detecting magnetic field. Owing to the relationship between magnetic domain configuration and macroscopic resistivity, the application of an external magnetic field changes the resistivity of ferromagnetic materials. Although this effect is widely used in industrial applications, some basic aspects of AMR behavior are still unsufficiently understood. For example, the role of crystallographic texture is not accurately described by conventional modeling tools. As a consequence of the direct relationship between microstructure and AMR, models for AMR effect are generally based on micromagnetic calculations. For these calculations, the number of degrees of freedom and interactions can grow exponentially when investigating macroscopic behavior (case of polycrystals for example).The thesis deals with the numerical modeling of AMR effect in ferromagnetic materials. This new 3D modeling tool can overcome this major drawback of micromagnetic approaches. A model to describe the effects of magneto-elastic coupling using a micro-macro approach is available at the laboratory GeePs. Based on the same principles of micro-macro modeling, an AMR effect simulation tool has been developed including the effect of mechanical stress and the role of crystallographic texture of materials.The modeling strategy is as follows:Three scales of description of the behavior are introduced: the Representative Volume Element (RVE) of polycrystals (macro scale), the single crystal or grain, and finally the magnetic domain (micro scale).A first step, named localization, determines the magneto-mechanical loading (magnetic field and mechanical stress) within a grain depending on the external applied load. The introduction of internal variables and corresponding evolution laws allow describing in a statistical way the evolution of the magnetic domain microstructure under the influence of the local load. Also at this scale, the use of the phenomenological Doring model allows for each area, to calculate the resistivity as a function of the relative orientation between local magnetization and electric current. Once this local resistivity is known, a so-called homogenization step based on the Bruggeman model is used to determine the macroscopic resistivity of the RVE. It is thus possible to predict the variation in resistivity between an initial demagnetized state and a state under any magneto-mechanical loading.The results obtained by this approach were successfully compared to experimental results from literature on polycrystalline nickel, pure iron or Permalloy.Then simulations reproducing AMR sensors operating conditions were carried out. These simulations lead to the conclusion that it is possible to improve the sensitivity of AMR sensors by introducing an appropriate biaxial residual stress.

In this thesis context refers to information about the environment (the user or entity's surroundings) that can influence and determine the behavior of a computing system. Context-awareness means that the computer can adapt to the situation in which it is working. Context is a key issue in mobile computing, especially with handheld devices (such as PDAs and mobile phones), due to the fact that they can be used while on the move; hence the environment around them can change. The environment of a static device may also change and require the device to adapt. Applications and systems that exploit context by both sensing and reacting to their environment are called context-aware applications. Devices that are context-aware are able to perceive stimuli and react accordingly, with minimal interaction with the user. Providing context-aware services to users of mobile devices via context-aware applications is becoming an important and significant factor in the market and is a developing industry. In this thesis we analyze and develop an application that exploits context to provide a service that improves the interaction between humans and a computer. The thesis begins with a study of what types of sensors are available to provide information about the device's context. This is followed by the design of an appropriate way of using the selected sensor (ecompass) to provide a means of adapting a service to the user's and device's context. The focus is every day activities of a student at a university - specifically finding the location of a meeting room for a seminar; however, similar scenarios exist for other types of users. After determining that it was feasible to add a e-compass as a sensor to an existing personal digital assistant and to provide a map to the mobile user, the focus of the thesis shifted to an examination of the performance of the adaptation of the map as the user moved the device. Initially it required excessive time to render the map on the device, thus as the user moved the device the map was not updated quickly enough for the user to know their correct orientation with respect to the map. Therefore the thesis project examined how this performance could be improved sufficiently that the rendering would keep up with the change in orientation of the device. This investigation lead to a shift from server based rendering of the map as an image, followed by the transfer of the image to the device for display; to a sending a scalable vector graphics version of the map to the device for local rendering. While initially this was expected to be much faster than transferring an image for an actual map of the building where this work was taking place the local rendering was actually slower. This subsequently lead to server based pruning of the irrelevant details from the map, then a transfer of the relevant portion of the map to the device, followed by local rendering. / I den här avhandlingen hänvisar 'context' till information om miljön (i användarens eller enhetens omgivning) som kan bestämma och påverka beteendet hos ett datorsystem. Contex-awareness innebär att datorn kan anpassa sig till den situation där den arbetar. Context är en central fråga för mobila enheter, speciellt för handhållna enheter (t.ex. handdatorer och mobiltelefoner), på grund av att de kan användas på resande fot där omgivningen hela tiden förändras. Omgivningen för en statisk enhet kan också förändras och kräver att enheten kan anpassa sig. Applikationer och system som utnyttjar context genom att både känna av och reagera på sin omgivning kallas context-aware applications. Enheter som är kontextmedvetna kan uppfatta stimuli och reagera på den med minimal användarinteraktion. Att tillhandahålla kontextmedvetna tjänster till användare av mobila enheter via kontextmedvetna applikationer blir en allt viktigare och betydelsefullare faktor på marknaden och är en växande industri. I den här avhandlingen analyserar och utvecklar vi ett program som utnyttjar kontext för att tillhandahålla en tjänst som förbättrar samspelet mellan människa och dator. Avhandlingen inleds med en undersökning av vilka typer av sensorer som finns tillgängliga för att tillhandahålla information om enhetens kontext. Detta följs av en design för att på lämpligaste sätt använda den valda sensorn (e-kompass) för att tillhandahålla ett sätt att anpassa en tjänst till användaren och enhetens kontext. Fokus är vardagsaktivitieter för en student vid ett universitet - särskilt att hitta till ett konferensrum för ett seminarium, liknande scenarier finns även för andra typer av användare. Efter att ha fastställt att det var möjligt att koppla en sensor, i form av en e-kompass, till en befintlig personal digital assistant samt att visa en karta för användaren, flyttades fokus för avhandlingen till en undersökning om tjänstens prestanda när användaren flyttade enheten. Initialt krävde enheten väldigt lång tid att rendera kartan och när enheten flyttades uppdaterades kartan inte tillräckligt snabbt för att användaren skulle veta sin riktning i relation till kartan. Därför undersöktes hur prestandan kunde förbättras så att enheten skulle kunna hänga med bättre när enhetens riktning förändrades. Undersökningen ledde till att istället för att rendera en bild på servern och sedan skicka till enheten, skapa en vektorbaserad bild på servern, skicka till enheten och rendera lokalt. Även om detta initialt förväntades vara mycket snabbare än att överföra en bild av en verklig karta var den lokala renderingen faktiskt ännu långsammare. Detta ledde till en serverbaserad gallring av ovidkommande kartdetaljer samt beskärning innan kartan fördes över till enheten och renderades lokalt.

The main aim of this work was to investigate electrical conductivity of La-Ca(Sr)-MnO thin films at high pulsed electric and magnetic fields and to clear up the possibilities to use these materials for high pulsed magnetic field sensor and fault current limiter applications. The dissertation consists of the preface, six chapters, summary and main conclusions, references, list of publications and abstract (in Lithuanian). The main objectives of the work, scientific novelty, goals, validation of results, and statements for defense are presented in the preface. Chapter 1 presents an introduction and review of previous works on electroresistance (ER) and magnetoresistance (MR) phenomena in manganites. Chapter 2 presents a description of two deposition techniques which were used for preparation of thin manganite films: metal organic chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD) and pulsed laser deposition (PLD). Measurement equipment and methods are described in Chapter 3. The resistance dependence on voltage was investigated using electric pulses with duration of 5–30 ns and amplitude up to 1000 V in the temperature range of 4.2–300 K. For magnetoresistance measurements a pulsed magnetic field generator, which generates magnetic field pulses of 0.6–2 ms duration with amplitude up to 50 T was used. Chapter 4 presents an investigation of surface morphology of prepared films and a characterization of their properties at low electric and magnetic fields. The electric and magnetic properties... [to full text]

The main aim of this work was to investigate electrical conductivity of La-Ca(Sr)-MnO thin films at high pulsed electric and magnetic fields and to clear up the possibilities to use these materials for high pulsed magnetic field sensor and fault current limiter applications.

La thématique de ce sujet de thèse porte sur l'étude des capteurs de champ magnétique intégrés en technologie CMOS standard basse tension sans étapes de fabrication supplémentaires. La co-intégration du transducteur (l'élément sensible qui transforme le champ magnétique en une grandeur électrique) et de son électronique de conditionnement du signal sur la même puce permet réaliser des fonctions spécifiques qui améliorent significativement les performances du capteur. Les travaux présentés dans cette thèse portent plus particulièrement sur deux types de transducteur : le transducteur à effet Hall dit vertical et un magnéto-transistor particulier appelé « CHOPFET ». Nous avons développé des modèles numériques de ces transducteurs afin d’analyser finement leurs comportement mais aussi d’optimiser leurs performances. En nous basant sur ces résultats, nous avons adapté des techniques de traitement du signal et proposé plusieurs architectures originales dédiées au conditionnement du signal magnétique. Cela a permis d’améliorer significativement les performances de ces capteurs en termes de résolution, d’offset et de consommation électrique. / The subject of thesis subject concerns the study of magnetic field sensors integrated in low-voltage standard CMOS process without additional post-processing steps. Co-integrating the magnetic transducer (the sensitive element transforming the magnetic field into an electrical quantity) together with its conditioning electronics onto a same chip allows to implement specific features, which dramatically improve the sensor performances. This work particularly focuses on two types of transducer: the vertical Hall device and a specific magneto-transistor called “CHOPFET”. We developed numerical simulation models in order to predict and optimize the behavior of these transducers. Based on the results, we adapted dedicated signal processing techniques and proposed several innovative magnetic signal conditioning architectures. This led to significant improvement in terms of resolution, offset and power consumption.

This thesis reports an in-fiber magnetic field sensor that is able to detect magnetic fields as low as 2 A/m at a spatial resolution of 1 mm. The small sensor consists of a magneto-optic slab waveguide, bismuth-doped rare earth iron garnet (Bi-RIG) that is coupled to an optical fiber. By coupling light from the fiber to the slab waveguide, it becomes an in-fiber magnetic field sensor. This is due to the Magneto-Optic Kerr effect; a change in refractive index is proportional to the applied magnetic field. When an AC field is applied, an AC component in the output power can be detected by a spectrum analyzer. The novelties of Magneto-Optic Slab Coupled Optical Sensor (MO-SCOS) devices include their small compact nature and a dielectric structure allowing low electromagnetic interference. Due to their compact size they are capable of placement within devices to measure interior electromagnetic fields immeasurable by other sensors that are either too large for internal placement or disruptive of the internal fields due to metallic structure. This work also reports progress on EO SCOS development. The EO sensor has found application in new environments including the electromagnetic rail gun, and a dual-axis sensor.

[pt] Esta tese trata do desenvolvimento de sensores para a monitoração do fluxo de campo magnético utilizando fibras ópticas. A principal motivação reside no uso destes sensores no control da condição de hidrogeradores. Duas tecnologias de sensoriamento com fibras ópticas são exploradas. A primeira baseia-se no uso de redes de Bragg e a segunda no emprego de interferômetros modais em fibras ópticas microestruturadas que apresentam alta birefringência. Em ambos os casos as fibras são recobertas por uma camada de material compósito magnetoestrictivo, que responde ao campo magnético deformando-se. Esta deformação é transferida para a rede de Bragg ou para a fibra microestruturada, produzindo uma resposta dependente do campo magnético. Os sensores desenvolvidos são leves e compactos. O sensor baseado em redes de Bragg, de formato cilíndrico com 1,5 mm de diâmetro e 7 mm de comprimento, passou por testes estáticos em campos magnéticos de até 750 mT tendo apresentado uma resolução de 0,3 mT. Testes dinâmicos foram realizados em um rotor de bancada desbalanceado e os resultados obtidos comparados com os fornecidos por um sensor magnético de efeito Hall mostrando excelente concordância. O sensor a fibra óptica interferométrico foi caracterizado estaticamente, tendo apresentado uma sensibilidade ao campo magnético duas vezes superior à do sensor baseado em redes de Bragg. / [en] This work explores the use of optical fiber sensors for the measurement of magnetic fields. In focus are applications in the condition monitoring of hydrogenerators, in particular for the measurement of the air gap, which consists in the space between rotor and stator of the synchronous machine. Two different fiber optic sensing principles were employed to develop magnetic field sensors. The first was based on fiber Bragg gratings and the second on an in-fiber modal interferometer, where the two orthogonally polarized modes of a high birefringent microstructured fiber generate fringes over the optical spectrum of a broad band source. In both cases, the fibers are coated by a thick layer of a magnetostrictive composite that deforms due to changes in its magnetization state. Strains in the coating are transferred to the fiber and measured by the sensor. The developed sensors are light and compact. The Bragg grating magnetic field sensor is cylindrical in shape with diameter of 1.5 mm and 7 mm long. The sensor was tested at magnetic fields of up to 750 mT under static conditions. The resolution achieved with a commercial interrogator was estimated at 0.4 mT. Dynamic tests were carried out in a laboratory rotor that presented a magnetic unbalance of approximately 7 percent in one of its four poles. Results were compared with a Hall Effect sensor showing excellent agreement. The interferometric sensor was characterized and results of static tests demonstrated that its sensibility to changes in the magnetic field is twice that of the sensor based on Bragg gratings.