Influence of DC bias fields on the linear/nonlinear magnetoelectric effect and the sensitivity in laminate composites

Since the turn of the millennium, an alternative type of magnetic sensor, based on the magneto-electric (ME) effect, has been widely investigated [1–5]. The ME effect is defined as a variation of dielectric po-larization in a material when subjected to an applied mag-netic field [6]. Previous reports indicated that the linear response of the ME sensor was the best [7, 8]. However, the linear response of ME composites is sensitive to the in-trinsic and extrinsic noises including the vibrational noise introduced via the piezoelectric effect and the intrinsic noise, such as Johnson noise, 1/