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Nanophotonics

Cover

Published Aug 3, 2026• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The cover illustrates a spatially variant polarization metasurface for single-cell multi-channel spin-exchange relaxation-free (SERF) magnetometry. By generating opposite-handed circular polarizations, the metasurface partitions a single atomic ensemble into independently polarized sub-ensembles. Opposite-handed neighboring channels, assisted by linear polarization barriers, suppress diffusion-induced inter-channel crosstalk and demonstrate a promising route toward improved spatial resolution. More details can be found in the Research Article by Mao Ye and co-workers (DOI: 10.1002/nap2.70213).

DOI
10.1002/nap2.70241

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The cover illustrates a spatially variant polarization metasurface for single-cell multi-channel spin-exchange relaxation-free (SERF) magnetometry. By generating opposite-handed circular polarizations, the metasurface partitions a single atomic ensemble into independently polarized sub-ensembles. Opposite-handed neighboring channels, assisted by linear polarization barriers, suppress diffusion-induced inter-channel crosstalk and demonstrate a promising route toward improved spatial resolution. More details can be found in the Research Article by Mao Ye and co-workers (DOI: 10.1002/nap2.70213).
ABSTRACT Conventional understanding of a spin‐exchange relaxation‐free (SERF) atom ensemble pertains to the common perception that the rapid exchange of atom state finally results in uniform time evolution of the whole ensemble. However, in this study, we demonstrate that by manipulating pumping polarization in a micrometer level, misalignment between the time evolution of different sub‐ensembles can be created within a single SERF ensemble with unprecedented independency. A novel pumping system consisting of a miniaturized 87 Rb vapor cell and a space‐variant polarization metasurface is developed for the proof of concept. Our method induces position‐dependent atomic anisotropy in both pumping and absorption into the thermal atomic ensemble. By constructing calculated Zeeman‐sublevel populations in the SERF regime, distinct sensing channels are generated with 0.22 V/nT average scale factor, which is comparable with a single channel generated by a single SERF ensemble. The average crosstalk ratios between adjacent channels are measured up to 32 dB, through the excitation of the fictitious magnetic field (3.5 nT, 30 Hz), which is measured as 20 dB without sub‐ensemble isolation in the same experimental condition. Our work demonstrates unprecedented crosstalk reduction in single‐cell multichannel SERF magnetometry, which holds new promise for applications including high‐spatial resolution neural biomagnetism mapping and portable magnetism measurement devices.
Conventional understanding of spin-exchange relaxation-free (SERF) atom ensemble pertains to the common perception that the rapid exchange of atom state finally results in uniform time evolution of the whole ensemble. However, in this study, we demonstrate that by manipulation of pumping polarization in micro-meter level, misalignment between the time evolution of different sub-ensemble can be created within single SERF ensemble with unprecedent independency. A novel pumping system consists of a miniaturized 87^{87}87Rb vapor cell and a space-variant polarization metasurface is developed for the prove of concept. Our method induces position-dependent atomic anisotropy in both pumping and absorption into the thermal atomic ensemble. By constructing calculated Zeeman-sublevel populations in SERF regime, distinct sensing channels are generated with 0.22 V nT−1V\ nT^{-1}V nT−1 average scale factor, which is comparable with single channel generated by single SERF ensemble. Average crosstalk ratio between adjacent channels (between micron scale sub-ensembles) are measured up to 32 dB, through the excitation of fictitious magnetic field (3.5 nT, 30 Hz), which is measured as 20 dB without sub-ensemble isolation in same experimental condition. Our work demonstrates unprecedented spatial resolution in SERF magnetometry which hold new promises for applications including high-spatial resolution neural biomagnetism mapping and portable magnetism measurement device.
The transverse light-shift can induce non-negligible polarization error in the output signal of spin-exchange relaxation-free (SERF) co-magnetometer. In this paper, a novel method for rapid measurement of transverse light-shift based on the error of steady-state response of co-magnetometer is proposed firstly, then the sources of transverse light-shift in a compact SERF co-magnetometer is modeled and analyzed from three aspects: the non-ideal linear polarization of probe laser, the circular dichroism of the atomic spin ensembles, and the stress-induced birefringence effect of the cell wall. Furthermore, the decoupling and suppression methods of transverse light-shift based on a degree of circular polarization (DOCP) regulation scheme is presented, to realize the decoupling measurement of the transverse light-shift introduced by the whole co-magnetometer cell, and cancel it out with the non-ideal linear polarization of the probe laser. Eventually, the DOCP regulation scheme suggested in this paper achieves more than a 67% suppression ratio in transverse light-shift, and the short- and long-term performance of SERF co-magnetometer are improved due to the reduction of the coupling effect between the probe laser power and transverse field. Moreover, the measurement, decoupling and suppression methods provided in this paper also have the potential to be applied to other atomic sensors, such as the SERF magnetometers and nuclear spin co-magnetometers.