Researchers make magnetic sensor from plastic paint

“Spintronic” magnetic field sensor developed at the U measures about 0.8 inches by 1.2 inches. Photo credit: Christoph Boehme, U of U

University of Utah physicists developed an inexpensive, highly accurate magnetic field sensor for scientific and possibly consumer uses based on a “spintronic” organic thin-film semiconductor that basically is “plastic paint.” The new kind of magnetic-resonance magnetometer also resists heat and degradation, works at  room temperature, and never needs to be calibrated, physicists Christoph Boehme, Will Baker and colleagues report online in the Tuesday, June 12 edition of the journal Nature Communications. The magnetic-sensing thin film is an organic semiconductor polymer named MEH-PPV. Boehme says it really is nothing more than an orange-colored “electrically conducting, magnetic field-sensing plastic paint that is dirt cheap. We measure magnetic fields highly accurately with a drop of plastic paint, which costs just as little as drop of regular paint.” Read the news release here.