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Applied Physics Letters

A single-beam dual-axis atomic spin comagnetometer for rotation sensing

Liwei Jiang, Jiali Liu, Yixiang Liang, Mengnan Tian, Wei Quan

Published Feb 14, 2022• 45 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We describe a dual-axis atomic spin comagnetometer for rotation sensing using a single laser beam. A circularly polarized laser is used to pump the co-located atomic ensembles of alkali metal and noble gas and probe their gyroscopic precession at the same time, which is different from the traditional two-beam orthogonal pump-probe configuration. Combined with magnetic field modulations perpendicular to the laser propagating direction, the comagnetometer could measure dual-axis rotation rates simultaneously. This system is demonstrated theoretically and experimentally. A rotation sensitivity of 5.1 × 10–7 rad s−1 Hz−1∕2 and a bias instability of 0.016 °/h have been achieved. The theory and method presented here shed light on the way to miniaturize the comagnetometer with high precision for practical applications.

DOI
10.1063/5.0079429

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We describe a dual-axis atomic spin comagnetometer for rotation sensing using a single laser beam. A circularly polarized laser is used to pump the co-located atomic ensembles of alkali metal and noble gas and probe their gyroscopic precession at the same time, which is different from the traditional two-beam orthogonal pump-probe configuration. Combined with magnetic field modulations perpendicular to the laser propagating direction, the comagnetometer could measure dual-axis rotation rates simultaneously. This system is demonstrated theoretically and experimentally. A rotation sensitivity of 5.1 × 10–7 rad s−1 Hz−1∕2 and a bias instability of 0.016 °/h have been achieved. The theory and method presented here shed light on the way to miniaturize the comagnetometer with high precision for practical applications.
We describe a dual-axis atomic spin gyroscope based on an alkali metal-noble gas comagnetometer. Alkali metal vapor is optically pumped, and then the noble gas is hyperpolarized along the z axis. When sensing a transverse rotation, the polarized noble gas will be induced to precess and produce an effective magnetic field in the x – y plane for alkali metals to precess under. Operating in the spin-exchange relaxation-free regime, alkali atoms are modulated by the z axis magnetic field and serve as an integrated in-situ dual-axis magnetometer to detect the gyroscopic precession in the x and y axes simultaneously, using a single probe beam. By using the parametric modulation technique, the low frequency drift is effectively suppressed and a bias instability of less than 0.05 deg/h has been achieved in our dual-axis atomic spin gyroscope.
We have developed a single-beam spin-exchange relaxation-free comagnetometer using elliptically polarized light for dual-axis rotation measurement. The light beam propagating through the glass cell is simultaneously used for optical pumping and signal extraction. Combined with transverse magnetic field modulation, the rotation information can be collected through a balanced polarimeter module and a lock-in amplifier. Also, we propose a decoupling method by adjusting the phase shift of the reference signal, allowing the device to realize biaxial signal decoupling while still maintaining its self-compensation state. Compared to those without decoupling, our method improves the performance of our device in its signal-to-noise ratio and rotation sensitivity. The single-beam comagnetometer scheme and the decoupling method have a positive impact on the development of miniaturized atomic sensors for high-precision inertial measurement.
A compact dual-axis $\mathrm{K}\ensuremath{-}\mathrm{Rb}\ensuremath{-}^{21}\mathrm{Ne}$ comagnetometer with one circularly polarized pump beam and two orthogonal linearly polarized probe beams is presented. It can be exploited for rotation sensing by operating in the spin-exchange relaxation-free regime. Due to the light shift arising from the pump laser, there is a cross-talk effect between the two sensitive axes, which limits the comagnetometer applications. To eliminate this effect, an external field parallel to the direction of the pump beam is used to compensate the light-shift field. It is validated theoretically and experimentally in the dual-axis $\mathrm{K}\ensuremath{-}\mathrm{Rb}\ensuremath{-}^{21}\mathrm{Ne}$ comagnetometer. With the cross-talk effect suppressed, the comagnetometer can carry out high-precision rotation sensing along two sensitive axes simultaneously and independently.
Abstract Quantum sensing has demonstrated exceptional potential in magnetic field and inertial rotation measurements due to its ultra-high sensitivity. Among various implementations, the spin-exchange relaxation-free comagnetometer, as atomic spin sensor, exhibits remarkable sensitivity and strong potential for miniaturization and integration. However, the low-frequency performance of such comagnetometers is fundamentally limited by intrinsic noise due to the coupling between magnetic field ( B ) and inertial rotation signals ( Ω ). In this paper, a novel dual spin-polarization detection scheme for a hybrid-pumping comagnetometer is proposed. By introducing simultaneous detection of two electron spin polarizations combined with longitudinal magnetic field modulation and demodulation, our approach enables decoupling and synchronous measurement of B and Ω . The proposed scheme is experimentally validated on a K–Rb- 21 Ne comagnetometer platform. Experimental results show that the two electron species demonstrate inconsistent behaviors in the self-compensation effect, with their respective self-compensation points occurring at different operating conditions. Finally, by individually calibrating the dual spin-polarization detection outputs, real-time in situ measurements of dual-axis magnetic fields and inertial rotation are achieved, effectively addressing the crosstalk issue between magnetic and inertial signals.
Abstract Alkali-noble-gas comagnetometers have become an essential tool for tests of fundamental physics and offer a compact platform for precision gyroscopy. They are, however, limited by technical noise at low frequencies, commonly due to their limited suppression of magnetic noise. Here we investigate a new method for co-magnetometry between a single noble gas and alkali species. While similar to well-known devices using self-compensation, our scheme introduces magnetic pulses that controllably perturb the noble gas and pulsed optical pumping to polarise the alkali atoms. These applied pulses allow our scheme to measure, rather than just suppress, the effect of magnetic noise thereby offering reduced cross-talk. We show numerically that our scheme retrieves four signals (rotations and magnetic fields on two transverse axes) with similar sensitivity to a single axis device. We also present a proof-of-principle experiment based on a 87 Rb - 129 Xe cell. Our data shows a low magnetic-rotation cross-talk of 0.2 ± 0.1 μ Hz/pT, which is already on par with the most sensitive devices relying on self-compensation.
We describe a nuclear spin gyroscope based on an alkali-metal--noble-gas comagnetometer. Optically pumped alkali-metal vapor is used to polarize the noble-gas atoms and detect their gyroscopic precession. Spin precession due to magnetic fields as well as their gradients and transients can be cancelled in this arrangement. The sensitivity is enhanced by using a high-density alkali-metal vapor in a spin-exchange relaxation free regime. With a $\mathrm{K}\mathrm{\text{\ensuremath{-}}}^{3}\mathrm{He}$ comagnetometer we demonstrate rotation sensitivity of $5\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}7}\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{rad}\text{ }{\mathrm{s}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}\text{ }{\mathrm{Hz}}^{\ensuremath{-}1/2}$, equivalent to a magnetic field sensitivity of 2.5  fT/Hz1/22.5\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{fT}/{\mathrm{Hz}}^{1/2}2.5  fT/Hz1/2. The rotation signal can be increased by a factor of 10 using 21Ne^{21}\mathrm{Ne}21Ne with a smaller magnetic moment. The comagnetometer is also a promising tool in searches for anomalous spin couplings beyond the standard model.