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Applied Mechanics and Materials

A Design of Cesium Atomic Magnetometer Based on Circular Dichroism

Xian Jin Zeng, Mo Si Hao, Qing Meng Li, Qiang Liu, Jun Hai Zhang, Wei Min Sun

Published Oct 1, 2012• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Recently, atomic magnetometers have been reported as the most sensitive magnetometers by completely eliminating the spin exchange relaxation. In this paper, we described a design of highly sensitive cesium atomic magnetometer based on circular dichroism, which had the advantage of easily locking the probing laser to the necessary frequency compared with those based on circular birefringence. In order to polarize the cesium atoms uniformly, the pumping laser light was separated into two counter-propagating and counter-circular polarization beams through the atomic vapor cell. We employed a circular analyzer optical configuration to measure the ellipticity of the probing light, which indicated the amplitude of the magnetic field. The external magnetic field was tracked by a digital auto frequency tracking system.

DOI
10.4028/www.scientific.net/amm.203.268

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Recently, atomic magnetometers have been reported as the most sensitive magnetometers by completely eliminating the spin exchange relaxation. In this paper, we described a design of highly sensitive cesium atomic magnetometer based on circular dichroism, which had the advantage of easily locking the probing laser to the necessary frequency compared with those based on circular birefringence. In order to polarize the cesium atoms uniformly, the pumping laser light was separated into two counter-propagating and counter-circular polarization beams through the atomic vapor cell. We employed a circular analyzer optical configuration to measure the ellipticity of the probing light, which indicated the amplitude of the magnetic field. The external magnetic field was tracked by a digital auto frequency tracking system.
Recently, atomic magnetometers have been researched widely for its ultra high sensitivity. But the influence of pump light’s duty cycle on atomic magnetometers has been concerned little. In this paper, we described a sensitive cesium atomic magnetometer based on circular dichroism, which had the advantage of easily locking the probing laser to the necessary frequency. We experimentally investigated the amplitudes and linewidths of magnetic resonance signals at different modulated duty cycle of the pump light. The result indicated that our magnetometer achieved the highest sensitivity at the duty cycle of 30%. It’s valuable for optimizing the sensitivity of most atomic magnetometers.
We report a rubidium atomic magnetometer based on pump-probe nonlinear magneto-optical rotation. The rubidium vapor cell is placed in a five-layer magnetic shield with inner coils that can generate uniform magnetic fields along the direction of pump beam, and the cell is also placed in the center of a Helmholtz coil that can generate an oscillating magnetic field perpendicular to the direction of pump beam. The atoms are optically pumped by circularly polarized pump beam along a constant magnetic field in a period of time, then the pump beam is turned off and a /2 pulse of oscillating magnetic field for 87Rb atoms is applied. After the above process, the individual atomic magnetic moments become phase coherent, resulting in a transverse magnetization vector precessing at the Larmor frequency in the magnetic field. The linearly polarized probing beam is perpendicular to the direction of magnetic field, and can be seen as a superposition of the left and right circularly polarized light. Because of the different absorptions and dispersions of the left and right circularly polarized light by rubidium atoms, the polarization direction of probing beam rotates when probing beam passes through rubidium vapor cell. The rotation of the polarization is subsequently converted into an electric signal through a polarizing beam splitter. Finally, the decay signal related to the transverse magnetization vector is measured. The Larmor frequency proportional to magnetic field is obtained by the Fourier transform of the decay signal. The value of magnetic field is calculated from the formula:B=(2/) f, where and f are the gyromagnetic ratio and Larmor frequency, respectively. In order to measure the magnetic field in a wide range, the tracking lock mode is proposed and tested. The atomic magnetometer can track the magnetic field jump of 1000 nT or 10000 nT, indicating that the atomic magnetometer has strong locking ability and can be easily locked after start-up. The main performances in different magnetic fields are tested. The results show that the measurement range of the atomic magnetometer is from 100 nT to 100000 nT, the extreme sensitivity is 0.2 pT/Hz1/2, and the magnetic field resolution is 0.1 pT. The transverse relaxation times of the transverse magnetization vector in different magnetic fields are obtained, and the relaxation time decreases with the increase of the magnetic field. When the measurement range is from 5000 nT to 100000 nT, the magnetic field sampling rate of the atomic magnetometer can be adjusted in a range from 1 Hz to 1000 Hz. The atomic magnetometer in high sampling rate can measure weak alternating magnetic field at low frequency. This paper provides an important reference for developing the atomic magnetometer with large measurement range, high sensitivity and high sampling rate.
We describe our approach to atomic magnetometry based on the push-pull optical pumping technique. Cesium vapor is pumped and probed by a resonant laser beam whose circular polarization is modulated synchronously with the spin evolution dynamics induced by a static magnetic field. The magnetometer is operated in a phase-locked loop, and it has an intrinsic sensitivity below 20fT/Hz, using a room temperature paraffin-coated cell. We use the magnetometer to monitor magnetic field fluctuations with a sensitivity of 300fT/Hz.
Abstract The polarization of light affected by the birefringence of optical elements, such as vapor cell walls, mirrors, and windows, may introduce systematic errors that can be minimized by precisely measuring and correcting the light polarization with a highly sensitive atomic polarimeter. In high precision measurements, it is necessary to measure the light polarization with a high precision where the light interacts with atoms. However, it is inconvenient or even impossible to use the presented method to measure the light polarization, for example, in a cell or cavity. We present a precise and relatively straightforward method to measure the light polarization based on a cesium (Cs) atomic magnetometer configuration. The pump-probe scheme is involved in our experiment. The pump light polarizes atomic spins and the probe light measures the spins polarization. The optical rotation of the probe light significantly depends on the pump light ellipticity, which can be used to measure the light polarization with a high precision. In our work, we present a method to measure the pump light ellipticity with a sensitivity of 2.1 × 10 −8 rad Hz −1/2 for linearly polarized light, which has approximately an order of magnitude improvement than previous research results.
We describe our approach to atomic magnetometry based on the push-pull optical pumping technique. Cesium vapor is pumped and probed by a resonant laser beam whose circular polarization is modulated synchronously with the spin evolution dynamics induced by a static magnetic field. The magnetometer is operated in a phase-locked loop, and it has an intrinsic sensitivity below 20fT/Hz, using a room temperature paraffin-coated cell. We use the magnetometer to monitor magnetic field fluctuations with a sensitivity of 300fT/Hz.
Spin-exchange relaxation free alkali-metal magnetometers typically operate in the regime of high optical density, presenting challenges for simple and efficient optical pumping and detection. We describe a high-sensitivity Rb magnetometer using a single elliptically polarized off-resonant laser beam. Circular component of the light creates relatively uniform spin polarization while the linear component is used to measure optical rotation generated by the atoms. Modulation of the atomic spin direction with an oscillating magnetic field shifts the detected signal to high frequencies. Using a fiber-coupled distributed feedback laser, we achieve magnetic field sensitivity of 7 fT/Hz7\text{ }\text{fT}/\sqrt{\text{Hz}}7 fT/Hz​ with a miniature $5\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}5\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}5\text{ }\text{mm}\text{ }\text{Rb}$ vapor cell.