Remotely-sensed atomic magnetometry

Rui Zhang, Emmanuel Klinger, Felipe Pedreros Bustos +4 more

Stand-off magnetometry allows measuring magnetic field at a distance, and can be employed in geophysical research, hazardous environment monitoring, and security applications. Stand-off magnetometry based on resonant scattering from atoms or molecules is often limited by the scarce amounts of detected light. The situation would be dramatically improved if the light emitted by excited atoms were to propagate towards the excitation light source in a directional manner. Here, we demonstrate that this is possible by means of mirrorless lasing. In a tabletop experiment, we detect free-precession signals of ground-state sodium spins under the influence of an external magnetic field by measuring backward-directed light. This method enables scalar magnetometry in the Earth field range, that can be extended to long-range remote sensing.

Antoine Weis, G. Bison, Z. D. Grujić

Kfir Levi, Avital Giat, Liran Golan +2 more

Quantum sensing is an ever-evolving research field describing the use of a quantum phenomenon to perform measurement of a physical quantity. Amongst different types of quantum sensors, atomic vapor-based quantum effects are extensively used to measure quantities such as time, velocity, acceleration, electric, and magnetic fields. Here, we propose and demonstrate remote quantum sensing using a chip-scale atomic vapor cell. Specifically, we remotely interrogate millimeter-scale micromachined vapor cells, and measure the ambient Earth’s magnetic field at a standoff distance of ∼10 m and a sensitivity of ∼1 pT/√Hz. We further spatially map different magnetic fields in the presence of a noisy ambient environment. Simultaneously we are able measure the distance between a micro-cell and the interrogating system by means of time-of-flight measurements, thus correlating between position and magnetic field. Utilizing micromachined vapor cells for remote magnetometry offers substantial advantages in scalability, planar photonic integration, cost, and size. Consequently, we provide a novel toolset to deploy, measure, and map arbitrary, remote, and hard-to-access magnetic fields in unshielded environments with high sensitivity and spatial resolution, paving the way to a variety of novel applications in diverse fields such as medicine, communication, defense, space-exploration, and quantum technologies.

J. P. Carrico, T. S. Stein

Kfir Levi, Avital Giat, Liron Stern

We propose and demonstrate chip-scale based all-optical remote magnetic sensing. Specifically, we remotely interrogate mm-scale micromachined vapor cells and measure the ambient magnetic field with at a standoff distance of ~10 meters and a sensitivity of ~1 pT/√Hz. Simultaneously we are able to measure the distance between the micro-cell and the interrogating system by means of time-of-flight measurements, thus correlating between position and magnetic field. Consequently, we provide a novel toolset to remotely map arbitrary, remote and hard to access magnetic field in an unshielded environment with high sensitivity and spatial resolution.

Dmitry Budker