Enhanced giant magneto-impedance effects in sandwich FINEMET/rGO/FeCo composite ribbons

Highlights: • FINEMET/rGO/FeCo composite ribbons were prepared by electroless plating and sputtering. • The maximum GMI ratio of enhanced /F/GFC reached 70.32%, which was 2.1 times of bare FINEMET ribbon. • Magnetic dipole interaction played an important role in modulating magnetic properties of soft magnetic materials. This paper designed and regulated a unique sandwich FINEMET/rGO/FeCo composite ribbons (/F/GFC) with giant magneto-impedance (GMI) effect. The reduced graphene oxide (rGO) was synthesized on the FINEMET ribbons by one-step electroless plating, and FeCo layer was obtained by magnetron sputtering method. The study on morphology, structure, GMI effect and magnetic properties of /F/GFC illustrated that the currents passed through the highly conductive layer of rGO at high frequency, which greatly reducing the skin effect. In addition, the FeCo layer increased the permeability and provided a closed magnetic circuit, which can finally gain a large GMI effect at low frequency. The /F/GFC owned enhanced GMI effect, with the maximum GMI ratio reaching 70.32%, which was 2.1 times of the bare FINEMET ribbon, 1.4 times of the FINEMET/rGO composite ribbon and 1.2 times of the FINEMET/FeCo composite ribbon, respectively. The result can be explained by the regulating effect of magnetic dipole interaction on the magnetic properties of soft magnetic materials.