A Practical and Automated Hall Magnetometer for Characterization of Magnetic Materials

A versatile Hall magnetometer has been developed, manufactured, calibrated, and turned operational for measurements of the magnetic properties of bulk materials and magnetic microand 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.