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IEEE Electronic Components and Technology Conference (ECTC)

Optoelectronic Integration with Improved Sensitivity for Microfabricated Optical Magnetometers

Yu Ji, Jintang Shang, Lei Wu, Qi Gan

Published May 1, 2016• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Micro-fabricated optical magnetometers as the most sensitive magnetic field sensors play a significant role in a variety of areas ranging from health care and nuclear magnetic resonance to fundamental atomic physics research and remote monitoring. Optoelectronic integration is the main barrier for the performance of the micro-fabricated optical magnetometer. In this study, by using micro alkali vapor cell with spherical structure, a novel optoelectronic integration approach with improved sensitivity for micro-fabricated optical magnetometers has been investigated. Firstly, the manufacturing process of the micro alkali vapor cell with spherical structure is presented. Secondly, the optical path length and the buffer gas pressure of the prepared micro alkali cell have been characterized through one optical frequency-locking system. In the end, optoelectronic integration for the micro-fabricated optical magnetometers has been investigated in this study. Results indicate that the micro alkali cell with spherical structure has a greatly improved optical path length and owns the nitrogen buffer gas at the pressure of 2.25amg. Results also show that by using the micro alkali vapor cell with spherical structure, the novel optoelectronic integration approach has greatly improved signal to noise ratio(S/N) and sensitivity for the micro-fabricated optical magnetometers.

DOI
10.1109/ectc.2016.150

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Micro-fabricated optical magnetometers as the most sensitive magnetic field sensors play a significant role in a variety of areas ranging from health care and nuclear magnetic resonance to fundamental atomic physics research and remote monitoring. Optoelectronic integration is the main barrier for the performance of the micro-fabricated optical magnetometer. In this study, by using micro alkali vapor cell with spherical structure, a novel optoelectronic integration approach with improved sensitivity for micro-fabricated optical magnetometers has been investigated. Firstly, the manufacturing process of the micro alkali vapor cell with spherical structure is presented. Secondly, the optical path length and the buffer gas pressure of the prepared micro alkali cell have been characterized through one optical frequency-locking system. In the end, optoelectronic integration for the micro-fabricated optical magnetometers has been investigated in this study. Results indicate that the micro alkali cell with spherical structure has a greatly improved optical path length and owns the nitrogen buffer gas at the pressure of 2.25amg. Results also show that by using the micro alkali vapor cell with spherical structure, the novel optoelectronic integration approach has greatly improved signal to noise ratio(S/N) and sensitivity for the micro-fabricated optical magnetometers.
The designs of microfabricated alkali vapor cells play an important role when the atomic magnetometers are developing toward on-chip integration. This paper presents microfabricated spherical alkali vapor cells with improved sensitivity for chip-scale atomic magnetometers. A microfabricated spherical rubidium vapor cell and a traditional microfabricated planar rubidium vapor cell are designed for comparison, which are of the same volume and interconnected by a microchannel to acquire equal inner buffer gas pressure. In chip-scale spin-exchange relaxation-free (SERF) atomic magnetometers, the rubidium polarization lifetimes of three pairs of spherical and planar vapor cells at different buffer gas pressures of 0.35, 0.73, and 2.00 amg are measured, respectively. The sensitivity of SERF atomic magnetometers using the vapor cells at a 0.35-amg buffer gas pressure is also measured. The results show that the transverse polarization lifetime of the spherical vapor cell is 2.46, 1.44, and 1.05 times that of the planar one at 0.35-, 0.73-, and 2.00-amg buffer gas pressures, respectively. Combining the improved polarization lifetime and increased optical path length, chip-scale SERF atomic magnetometer using the microspherical vapor cell has the sensitivity of 60 fT/Hz1/2from 5 to 15 Hz, while that based on the planar one is demonstrated with the sensitivity of 400 fT/Hz1/2from 5 to 15 Hz.
High sensitive atomic magnetometers play an important role in many fields including geophysical mapping, space science, nuclear magnetic resonance, health care and perimeter and remote monitoring. In this study, a novel method to fabricate the micro spherical Rubidium vapor cell has been investigated and the integration of micro spherical rubidium vapor cell in 3-axis atomic magnetometer has been demonstrated successfully. First of all, a fabrication process for micro spherical alkali vapor cells is introduced. Then the prepared uniform wafer-level micro spherical rubidium vapor cell has been characterized by Ultraviolet spectrophotometer as well as a laser frequency locking system. At last, 3-axis atomic magnetometer based on the micro spherical rubidium vapor cell has been demonstrated. Results show that micro spherical rubidium vapor cell has been fabricated successfully. Results also indicate that a 3-axis atomic magnetometer based on the micro spherical rubidium vapor cell could measure magnetic fields along three directions (BX, BYand BZ).
With the continuous improvement of weak magnetic detection technology, there has been a growing trend towards more compact and integrated magnetometer. The SERF magnetometer and the Mz magnetometer have many common features in operation. Therefore, we design a new kind of miniaturized atomic sensors to integrate the SERF magnetometer and the Mz magnetometer based on micro-fabricated alkali vapor cell. The sensor structure consists of alkali vapor cell, three-axis magnetic field coils, heating module and optical module. This small size sensor has the potential to achieve a portable multi-function device.
This paper focuses on geometry influence of the micro alkali vapor cell on the sensitivity of the chip-scale atomic magnetometers. For the first time, by using micro spherical alkali vapor cells instead of traditional micro planar alkali vapor cells, we demonstrate a chip-scale atomic magnetometer with a ten-fold improvement in sensitivity experimentally. Besides, results also show that the micro spherical cell has improved anti-relaxation properties, especially at low buffer gas pressure. The geometry of the micro vapor cell might also be important for the performance of other chip-scale atomic devices including chip-scale atomic clocks, vector atomic microwave electrometers and atomic gyroscopes.
Spin-exchange-relaxation-free (SERF) optical atomic magnetometers are facing the challenges of dramatic decrease of sensitivity when the alkali vapor cells become small. This paper focuses on the sensitivity improvement of the chip-scale atomic magnetometer (CSAM) by changing buffer-gas pressures inside the microfabricated vapor cells. The rubidium vapor cells with three different buffer-gas pressures were tested in the SERF magnetometer. The influences of vapor cell temperature and pumping laser power on the device sensitivity are also characterized for further optimization. Results show that the three atomic vapor cells, with N2buffer-gas pressure of 0.20, 0.88, and 2.35 amg, have sensitivities of 900, 500, and 150 fT/Hz1/2, respectively. Results indicated that when the alkali vapor cells continue to be smaller, high buffer-gas pressure would provide an effective way to reduce the wall collision and improve the performance of CSAMs.
In this letter, we present a novel microfabricated shaped rubidium vapor cell with 3 cm optical path length for miniaturized atomic magnetometers. The novel shaped rubidium vapor cells are manufactured by a wafer-level fabrication process, and the process consists of the following three steps sequentially: first, wet etching to form oblong shallow cavity arrays; second, anodic bonding, glass reflowing, and wet etching to obtain a glass wafer with shaped structures; third, anodic bonding and chemical reaction to obtain the wafer-level shaped rubidium vapor cells. A miniaturized atomic magnetometer using the novel shaped rubidium vapor cell is characterized in the geomagnetic environment. The performance of the novel shaped rubidium vapor cell is compared with the traditional microfabricated rubidium vapor cell of a “glass–silicon–glass” sandwich structure. Results show that the measured geomagnetic field is 47.85 μT. It is demonstrated that the dispersive signal's slope of the novel shaped rubidium vapor cell is 15 times larger than that of the traditional one. Results also indicate that the miniaturized atomic magnetometer working in the geomagnetic environment has a magnetic noise spectral density of 3.5 pT/Hz1/2from 1 to 2 Hz.