Stress effect on magnetoimpedance in amorphous wires at gigahertz frequencies and application to stress-tunable microwave composite materials

Abstract

The effect of tensile stress on magnetoimpedance (MI) in CoMnSiB amorphous wires at microwave frequencies (0.5–3GHz) is investigated both experimentally and theoretically. In the presence of the dc bias magnetic field of the order of the anisotropy field, the impedance shows very large and sensitive change when the wire is subjected to a tensile stress: 100% and 60% per 180MPa for frequencies 500MHz and 2.5GHz, respectively. It is demonstrated that this behavior owes mainly to the directional change in the equilibrium magnetization caused by the applied stress and field, which agrees well with the theoretical results for the surface impedance. This stress effect on MI is proposed to be used for creating microwave stress-tunable composite materials containing short magnetic wires. The analysis of the dielectric response from such materials shows that depending on the stress level in the material, the dispersion of the effective permittivity can be of a resonant or relaxation type with a considerable change in its values (up to 100% at 600MPa). This media can be used for structural stress monitoring by microwave contrast imaging.