REVIEW article
Front. Electron.
Sec. Integrated Circuits and VLSI
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/felec.2025.1645594
This article is part of the Research TopicInnovations in Spintronic Technology for Enhanced Computing PerformanceView all articles
An Overview of Advanced Instruments for Magnetic Characterization and Measurements
Provisionally accepted
Junbiao Zhao
Ligang BaiZhiqiang Cao*Yi PengJinrui Bai
Shen LiXudong CaiXinmin ShiXiaoyang Lin
Guodong Wei*Xueying Zhang*- Beihang University, Beijing, China
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Magnetic materials play a pivotal role in emerging fields such as new energy, information technology, and biomedicine, where accurate magnetic characterization is essential for material innovation and device engineering. Notably, with the burgeoning development of nanomaterials and spintronics, the importance of magnetic characterization has grown significantly, accompanied by increasingly higher requirements for precision and multi-dimensional analysis. This paper elaborates on the working principles and structural components of static magnetic measurement techniques-including Vibrating Sample Magnetometer (VSM), Alternating Gradient Magnetometer (AGM), Magneto-Optical Kerr Effect (MOKE) Microscope, Magnetic Force Microscope (MFM) and Superconducting Quantum Interference Device (SQUID) Magnetometer, as well as dynamic magnetic measurement techniques such as Alternating Current (AC) susceptometry and Ferromagnetic Resonance (FMR). In addition, this review also introduces emerging techniques relevant to spintronics, including Magnetometer based on negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV⁻) centers in diamond, Spin-polarized Scanning Tunneling Microscope (SP-STM), Lorentz Transmission Electron Microscope (LTEM), and Soft X-ray-based techniques, highlighting their principles and applications in quantum sensing, magnetic imaging, and element-specific spin analysis. This overview emphasizes the unique capabilities and measurement principles of each magnetic characterization instrument, providing users with practical guidance to identify the most appropriate tool based on specific research objectives, material properties, and experimental requirements, thereby improving characterization efficiency and accuracy.
Keywords: Magnetic characterization, Spintronics, Static magnetometry, Dynamic magnetometry, Macroscopic magnetic properties, Magnetic domain imaging, Frequencydependent magnetometry
Received: 12 Jun 2025; Accepted: 31 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhao, Bai, Cao, Peng, Bai, Li, Cai, Shi, Lin, Wei and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Zhiqiang Cao, Beihang University, Beijing, China
Guodong Wei, Beihang University, Beijing, China
Xueying Zhang, Beihang University, Beijing, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.