Analysis and Optimization of Signal Detection Noise of Single-Beam Modulated Atomic Magnetometer Array

Abstract

Highly sensitive atomic magnetometers (AMs) have been wildly used to form magnetocardiography (MCG) or magnetoencephalography (MEG) devices recently. However, signal detection noise, including light noise due to pump light fluctuations and electrical noise introduced by the detection circuit, will inevitably affect the sensitivity of the AM. Therefore, this article proposes a novel method to suppress signal detection noise and improve the sensitivity of AM. We first propose a low-noise preamplifier circuit to suppress the electrical noise of the signal detection part. Then, based on the equivalent magnetic noise amplitude, a method to optimize the pump light intensity is proposed. The experimental setup has been established. Both the analysis and experimental results can be evaluated that the magnetometer sensitivity can always be maintained at a relatively high-sensitivity level (around 24 fT/Hz <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$^{1/2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> ) over a wide range of light intensities. We hope that the method proposed in this article can contribute to the improvement of sensor sensitivity in array AM systems.