Design and fabrication of microminiature delay line using thin film technology

This paper describes the fabrication of a miniaturized magnetostrictive delay line thin film. A monolithic design has been achieved with the coils and the magnetoelastic element contained onto the same silicon substrate. Such a miniaturized device able to be used as a sensor was fabricated by using a multilayer-like technique. The exciting conductor, the receiving coil and the magnetostrictive delay line were fabricated using a conventional photolithographic technique. In order to use conventional magnetostrictive thin films and Fe-metalloid amorphous thin films as active-magnetoelastic elements, the magnetoelastic properties which determine their performance was studied. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science S.A.