Development of a heart monitoring system based on thin film high-T/sub c/ DC-SQUIDs

Our aim is to built up an one-channel heart monitoring system to achieve fast and reliable information about the patients condition as well in emergency cases as in serial examinations by a non-invasive and touchless method. Step-edge and bicrystal junctions were used to prepare planar galvanically coupled thin film gradiometers and magnetometers. These sensors were used to carry out measurements in well-shielded and weak disturbed environment and we compared the different noise properties and field gradient resolutions. The influence of antenna configuration, SQUID parameter, cooling conditions, and different kinds of signal analysis will be discussed.