Author(s)

Jefferson F. D. F. Araujo^1,2*, Joao M. B. Pereira³

¹Department of Physics, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
²Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA.
³Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

A versatile Hall magnetometer has been developed, manufactured, calibrated, and turned operational for measurements of the magnetic properties of bulk materials and magnetic micro- and nanoparticles. The magnetometer was constructed from the combination of various equipments, which was usually available in most laboratories, such as a Hall effect sensor, an electromagnet, a current source, and a linear actuator. The achieved sensitivity to the magnetic moment was approximately 10^-8 Am². The results were compared to measurements performed with commercial vibrating-sample magnetometers and superconductor quantum interference devices (SQUID) and showed errors of around 1.7% and a standard deviation of 1.2% in relation to measures themselves. The constructed Hall magnetometer records a magnetic hysteresis loop of up to 1.2 T at room temperature. This magnetometer is cost-effective, versatile, and suitable for research.

Practical Magnetometer, Hall Sensor, Characterization of Magnetic Materials

Araujo, J. and Pereira, J. (2015) A Practical and Automated Hall Magnetometer for Characterization of Magnetic Materials. Modern Instrumentation, 4, 43-53. doi: 10.4236/mi.2015.44005.