Chinese Scientists Build Hall-Effect Chip to Detect Submarines 500 Meters Deep
Updated
Updated · South China Morning Post · Aug 15
Chinese Scientists Build Hall-Effect Chip to Detect Submarines 500 Meters Deep
1 articles · Updated · South China Morning Post · Aug 15
Summary
A compact Hall-effect chip developed by Chinese scientists can detect extremely faint magnetic fields, a step that could one day let consumer devices sense objects as deep as 500 meters underwater.
The advance breaks a decades-old trade-off in magnetic sensors: boosting sensitivity no longer has to raise noise output, a limit that had blocked smaller sensors from picking up weak signals.
Hall-effect sensors work by generating a tiny voltage in response to a magnetic field, but shrinking them had typically amplified background hiss much like turning up a radio also raises static.
The findings were published on July 17 in Physical Review Letters, pointing to broader uses for compact, high-sensitivity magnetic sensing beyond current everyday devices.