  Magnetoresistive (xMR) sensors find extensive application in science and
industry, replacing Hall sensors in various low field environments. While there
have been some efforts in increasing the dynamic field range of xMR sensors,
Hall sensors remain to dominate high field applications due to their wide
linear range. Using a perpendicular magnetized reference system and an in-plane
free layer allows us to overcome this disadvantage of xMR sensors, and,
furthermore, investigate spin-canting effects in interlayer exchange coupled
perpendicular synthetic antiferromagnets (p-SAF). We created p-SAFs with
exchange coupling fields of up to 10 kOe, based on magnetic Co/Pt multilayer
systems. The p-SAFs are either designed as "single" p-SAFs, where two Co/Pt
multilayers are interlayer exchange coupled via a 4 {\AA} thick Ru spacer, or
as "double" p-SAFs, where an additional Co layer is interlayer exchange coupled
to the top multilayer. These p-SAFs are used for giant magnetoresistance (GMR)
sensors with wide dynamic field range. By using a p-SAF as the reference system
and employing an in-plane magnetic layer as the GMR's free layer, the linear
range can be effectively increased limited only by the p-SAF's switching
fields. Additionally, the magnetic anisotropy of the in-plane free layer is
fully controlled, which allows saturation fields by design. Different
configurations were investigated, ranging from free layer magnetic saturation
at lower to far higher fields than the p-SAF's switching fields. We can show
through micromagnetic simulations that certain GMR transfer curves are
dominated by spin-canting effects in the interlayer exchange coupled reference
system. Finally, our simulation results lay out the correlation of the p-SAF's
design parameters and its magnetization reversal behavior.
