Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

Micromachines

Vector Atomic Magnetometer with Free Induction Decay Detection Based on a Microfabricated Vapor Cell

Pengbo Jiang, Qi Li, Jianan Qin, Zhiyuan Jiang

Published Dec 30, 2024• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Atomic magnetometers are highly sensitive instruments widely used for measurements of weak magnetic field. Extracting vector information while maintaining high-precision scalar detection has become the trend in atomic magnetometer development. We introduce a vector atomic magnetometer containing a 5 mm-thick microfabricated vapor cell operating in free-induction-decay mode. By employing orthogonal modulation techniques, the system achieves high-precision in-plane vector magnetic field measurements. The high-precision vector magnetic field measurements are demonstrated in the x–z plane. The sensitivity of the total field detection in the miniaturized atomic magnetometer is 30 pT·Hz−1/2 @11 µT. The average angular error of the decoupled measurement is as low as 4.7 mrad @7.6 µT for vector magnetic fields, providing a new approach for vector magnetic field measurement in miniaturized atomic magnetometers.

DOI
10.3390/mi16010041

Related papers

Free-Induction-Decay Magnetometer Based on a Microfabricated Cs Vapor Cell

Dominic Hunter, S. Piccolomo, Jonathan D. Pritchard +3 more

Microfabricated atomic magnetometers are important for fundamental research and numerous applications, including geophysical surveying and biological imaging, as they provide a sensitive, accurate, and portable alternative to standard magnetic sensing. The strong scalability and all-optical nature of the free-induction-decay (FID) magnetometer also benefit applications requiring sensor networks. This study shows the advantages of applying synchronous modulation and differential polarimetric detection in an FID setting, for measuring picotesla-level fields using a miniaturized Cs vapor cell.

Physical Review Applied•Jul 5, 2018•68 citations

Subpicotesla scalar atomic magnetometer with a microfabricated cell

Rui Zhang, T. Dyer, N. L. Brockie +2 more

We demonstrated a scalar atomic magnetometer using a microfabricated Cs vapor cell. The atomic spin precession is driven by an amplitude-modulated circularly-polarized pump laser resonant on the D1 transition of Cs atoms and detected by an off-resonant linearly-polarized probe laser using a balanced polarimeter setup. Under a magnetic field with amplitude in the Earth's magnetic field range, the magnetometer in the gradiometer mode can reach sensitivities below 150fT/√Hz, which shows that the magnetometer by itself can achieve sub-100fT/√Hz sensitivities. In addition to its high sensitivity, the magnetometer has a bandwidth close to 1 kHz due to the broad magnetic resonance inside the small vapor cell. Our experiment suggests the feasibility of a portable low-power and high-performance magnetometer which can be operated in the Earth's magnetic field. Such a device will greatly reduce the restrictions on the operating environment and expand the range of applications for atomic magnetometers, such as detection of nuclear magnetic resonance in low magnetic fields

•Sep 28, 2019•1 citation

Subpicotesla scalar atomic magnetometer with a microfabricated cell

Rui Zhang, Terry Dyer, Nathan Brockie +2 more

We demonstrated a scalar atomic magnetometer using a microfabricated Cs vapor cell. The atomic spin precession is driven by an amplitude-modulated circularly-polarized pump laser resonant on the D1 transition of Cs atoms and detected by an off-resonant linearly-polarized probe laser using a balanced polarimeter setup. Under a magnetic field with amplitude in the Earth's magnetic field range, the magnetometer in the gradiometer mode can reach sensitivities below 150fT/Hz, which shows that the magnetometer by itself can achieve sub-100fT/Hz sensitivities. In addition to its high sensitivity, the magnetometer has a bandwidth close to 1 kHz due to the broad magnetic resonance inside the small vapor cell. Our experiment suggests the feasibility of a portable low-power and high-performance magnetometer which can be operated in the Earth's magnetic field. Such a device will greatly reduce the restrictions on the operating environment and expand the range of applications for atomic magnetometers, such as detection of nuclear magnetic resonance in low magnetic fields.

arXiv:1910.01768•Journal of Applied Physics•Sep 26, 2019•17 citations

Miniature Wide-Range Three-Axis Vector Atomic Magnetometer

Jianjun Li, Deng Yicheng, Xuefeng Wang +2 more

A miniature wide-range three-axis vector atomic magnetometer under spin-exchange relaxation-free regime has been developed. With a cylindrical vapor cell of size 10 mm in diameter and length, we have constructed a single-beam configuration through a polarization-maintaining fiber carrying the laser beam to the sensor and a multimode fiber guiding the transmitted light field to the photodiode. A rotating field on the plane perpendicular to the direction of propagation of the laser and another modulation field in the pump direction, which are generated in the field programmable gate array using direct digital synthesis to measure the three components of the magnetic field simultaneously. The spin-exchange relaxation is suppressed in zero field controlled by a feedback system, thus a wide range and excellent accuracy of three-axis vector atomic magnetometer response is obtained. Consequently, the transverse magnetic field sensitivity of 350 fT/Hz1/2and longitudinal field sensitivity of 3pT/Hz1/2are achieved with a dynamic range of 60000 nT. This sensor with compact size, wide range and high sensitivity is particularly suitable for geomagnetic observatory and space exploration.

IEEE Sensors Journal•Sep 13, 2021•14 citations

Atomic free-spin-precession magnetometer for biomagnetic measurements in Earth-range magnetic fields

Philipp Neufeld, Janine Riedrich‐Möller, Tino Fuchs +1 more

We present an implementation of an atomic magnetometer based on free spin precession of optically pumped Rb 87 atoms. The design features a microfabricated vapor cell with an effective volume of 7.1 mm 3 containing isotopically enriched Rb 87 and nitrogen buffer gas. The magnetometer is designed to operate in the Earth-field range, exhibiting a magnetic noise floor of about 147 fT / Hz at field strengths comparable to Earth's magnetic field, i.e., around 50 μ T . This is in close agreement with the Cramér-Rao lower bound of 118 fT / Hz . The good sensitivity as well as the high dynamic range enables a wide range of applications, including magnetocardiography and geomagnetic measurements.

APS Open Science•Jun 8, 2026•0 citations

Accurate vector optically pumped magnetometer with microwave-driven Rabi frequency measurements

Christopher Kiehl, Thanmay S. Menon, Svenja A. Knappe +2 more

Robust calibration of vector optically pumped magnetometers (OPMs) is a nontrivial task, but increasingly important for applications requiring high-accuracy such as magnetic navigation, geophysics research, and space exploration. Here, we showcase a vector OPM that utilizes Rabi oscillations driven between the hyperfine manifolds of 87 Rb to measure the direction of a DC magnetic field against the polarization ellipse structure of a microwave field. By relying solely on atomic measurements—free-induction decay (FID) signals and Rabi measurements across multiple atomic transitions—this sensor can detect drift in the microwave vector reference and compensate for systematic shifts caused by off-resonant driving, nonlinear Zeeman (NLZ) effects, and buffer gas collisions. To facilitate deadzone-free operation, we also introduce a Rabi measurement that utilizes dressed-state resonances that appear during simultaneous Larmor precession and Rabi driving (SPaR). These measurements, performed within a microfabricated vapor cell platform, achieve an average vector accuracy of 0.46 mrad and vector sensitivities down to 11µrad/Hz for geomagnetic field strengths near 50 µT. This performance surpasses the challenging 1-deg (17 mrad) accuracy threshold of several contemporary OPM methods utilizing atomic vapors with an electromagnetic vector reference.

arXiv:2409.09885•Optica•Dec 11, 2024•10 citations
Atomic magnetometers are highly sensitive instruments widely used for measurements of weak magnetic field. Extracting vector information while maintaining high-precision scalar detection has become the trend in atomic magnetometer development. We introduce a vector atomic magnetometer containing a 5 mm-thick microfabricated vapor cell operating in free-induction-decay mode. By employing orthogonal modulation techniques, the system achieves high-precision in-plane vector magnetic field measurements. The high-precision vector magnetic field measurements are demonstrated in the x–z plane. The sensitivity of the total field detection in the miniaturized atomic magnetometer is 30 pT·Hz−1/2 @11 µT. The average angular error of the decoupled measurement is as low as 4.7 mrad @7.6 µT for vector magnetic fields, providing a new approach for vector magnetic field measurement in miniaturized atomic magnetometers.
Microfabricated atomic magnetometers are important for fundamental research and numerous applications, including geophysical surveying and biological imaging, as they provide a sensitive, accurate, and portable alternative to standard magnetic sensing. The strong scalability and all-optical nature of the free-induction-decay (FID) magnetometer also benefit applications requiring sensor networks. This study shows the advantages of applying synchronous modulation and differential polarimetric detection in an FID setting, for measuring picotesla-level fields using a miniaturized Cs vapor cell.
We demonstrated a scalar atomic magnetometer using a microfabricated Cs vapor cell. The atomic spin precession is driven by an amplitude-modulated circularly-polarized pump laser resonant on the D1 transition of Cs atoms and detected by an off-resonant linearly-polarized probe laser using a balanced polarimeter setup. Under a magnetic field with amplitude in the Earth's magnetic field range, the magnetometer in the gradiometer mode can reach sensitivities below 150fT/√Hz, which shows that the magnetometer by itself can achieve sub-100fT/√Hz sensitivities. In addition to its high sensitivity, the magnetometer has a bandwidth close to 1 kHz due to the broad magnetic resonance inside the small vapor cell. Our experiment suggests the feasibility of a portable low-power and high-performance magnetometer which can be operated in the Earth's magnetic field. Such a device will greatly reduce the restrictions on the operating environment and expand the range of applications for atomic magnetometers, such as detection of nuclear magnetic resonance in low magnetic fields
We demonstrated a scalar atomic magnetometer using a microfabricated Cs vapor cell. The atomic spin precession is driven by an amplitude-modulated circularly-polarized pump laser resonant on the D1 transition of Cs atoms and detected by an off-resonant linearly-polarized probe laser using a balanced polarimeter setup. Under a magnetic field with amplitude in the Earth's magnetic field range, the magnetometer in the gradiometer mode can reach sensitivities below 150fT/Hz, which shows that the magnetometer by itself can achieve sub-100fT/Hz sensitivities. In addition to its high sensitivity, the magnetometer has a bandwidth close to 1 kHz due to the broad magnetic resonance inside the small vapor cell. Our experiment suggests the feasibility of a portable low-power and high-performance magnetometer which can be operated in the Earth's magnetic field. Such a device will greatly reduce the restrictions on the operating environment and expand the range of applications for atomic magnetometers, such as detection of nuclear magnetic resonance in low magnetic fields.
A miniature wide-range three-axis vector atomic magnetometer under spin-exchange relaxation-free regime has been developed. With a cylindrical vapor cell of size 10 mm in diameter and length, we have constructed a single-beam configuration through a polarization-maintaining fiber carrying the laser beam to the sensor and a multimode fiber guiding the transmitted light field to the photodiode. A rotating field on the plane perpendicular to the direction of propagation of the laser and another modulation field in the pump direction, which are generated in the field programmable gate array using direct digital synthesis to measure the three components of the magnetic field simultaneously. The spin-exchange relaxation is suppressed in zero field controlled by a feedback system, thus a wide range and excellent accuracy of three-axis vector atomic magnetometer response is obtained. Consequently, the transverse magnetic field sensitivity of 350 fT/Hz1/2and longitudinal field sensitivity of 3pT/Hz1/2are achieved with a dynamic range of 60000 nT. This sensor with compact size, wide range and high sensitivity is particularly suitable for geomagnetic observatory and space exploration.
We present an implementation of an atomic magnetometer based on free spin precession of optically pumped Rb 87 atoms. The design features a microfabricated vapor cell with an effective volume of 7.1 mm 3 containing isotopically enriched Rb 87 and nitrogen buffer gas. The magnetometer is designed to operate in the Earth-field range, exhibiting a magnetic noise floor of about 147 fT / Hz at field strengths comparable to Earth's magnetic field, i.e., around 50 μ T . This is in close agreement with the Cramér-Rao lower bound of 118 fT / Hz . The good sensitivity as well as the high dynamic range enables a wide range of applications, including magnetocardiography and geomagnetic measurements.
Robust calibration of vector optically pumped magnetometers (OPMs) is a nontrivial task, but increasingly important for applications requiring high-accuracy such as magnetic navigation, geophysics research, and space exploration. Here, we showcase a vector OPM that utilizes Rabi oscillations driven between the hyperfine manifolds of 87 Rb to measure the direction of a DC magnetic field against the polarization ellipse structure of a microwave field. By relying solely on atomic measurements—free-induction decay (FID) signals and Rabi measurements across multiple atomic transitions—this sensor can detect drift in the microwave vector reference and compensate for systematic shifts caused by off-resonant driving, nonlinear Zeeman (NLZ) effects, and buffer gas collisions. To facilitate deadzone-free operation, we also introduce a Rabi measurement that utilizes dressed-state resonances that appear during simultaneous Larmor precession and Rabi driving (SPaR). These measurements, performed within a microfabricated vapor cell platform, achieve an average vector accuracy of 0.46 mrad and vector sensitivities down to 11µrad/Hz for geomagnetic field strengths near 50 µT. This performance surpasses the challenging 1-deg (17 mrad) accuracy threshold of several contemporary OPM methods utilizing atomic vapors with an electromagnetic vector reference.