The characteristics of a new type of high-quality strain gauge using amorphous Metglas SC ribbon are presented. Metglas 2605SC (SC) is an important member of the family of iron-based Metglas alloys. The material is made by cooling the molten alloy at a rate of 10/sup 6/ degrees C/s. It is a general-purpose soft magnetic material. A force transducer has been built using amorphous Metglas SC ribbon material. The characteristics of the transducer are presented. It is found that when a tensile stress is applied to a piece of SC ribbon, the mutual coupling between the primary and secondary windings change. The change in the coupling factor is caused by a change in the relative permeability of the material. The magnetic characteristics of this transducer are fully analyzed, the design equations are derived, and its applications are illustrated with a practical design example. The theoretical results are compared and verified with the practically measured values.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>