Magnetic sensors for diagnosis and healthcare applications

The development of magnetic field sensors for biomedical applications faces the challenge of maintaining the required detection sensitivity limit and overall design improvement in order to allow low-cost fabrication methods and flexibility of usage outside of special environments (e.g., shielding rooms). The feasibility of magnetic field sensors for applications such as magnetocardiography, magnetotomography, magnetomyography, and magnetoneurography has been successfully demonstrated; however, they are still not widely used in clinical practice due to a set of stringent requirements. In this chapter we discuss a number of room-temperature magnetic field sensors including giant magnetoresistive, fluxgate, and giant magnetoimpedance. The presentation is subdivided into two main categories: (1) measuring a magnetic field produced by human organs, (2) detecting magnetically labeled bio-molecules. The requirement of point-of-care diagnostics is to provide bioanalysis on a cellular or molecular level. Subsequently, important points are mobility, the speedy obtaining of results and low cost of fabrication.