Miniature Wide-Range Three-Axis Vector Atomic Magnetometer

Abstract

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/Hz <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">1/2</sup> and longitudinal field sensitivity of 3pT/Hz <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">1/2</sup> are 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.