Precision Magnetometers for Aerospace Applications: A Review

Abstract

Aerospace technologies are crucial for modern civilization; space-based infrastructure underpins weather forecasting, communications, terrestrial navigation and logistics, planetary observations, solar monitoring, and other indispensable capabilities. Extraplanetary exploration—including orbital surveys and (more recently) roving, flying, or submersible unmanned vehicles—is also a key scientific and technological frontier, believed by many to be paramount to the long-term survival and prosperity of humanity. All of these aerospace applications require reliable control of the craft and the ability to record high-precision measurements of physical quantities. Magnetometers deliver on both of these aspects and have been vital to the success of numerous missions. In this review paper, we provide an introduction to the relevant instruments and their applications. We consider past and present magnetometers, their proven aerospace applications, and emerging uses. We then look to the future, reviewing recent progress in magnetometer technology. We particularly focus on magnetometers that use optical readout, including atomic magnetometers, magnetometers based on quantum defects in diamond, and optomechanical magnetometers. These optical magnetometers offer a combination of field sensitivity, size, weight, and power consumption that allows them to reach performance regimes that are inaccessible with existing techniques. This promises to enable new applications in areas ranging from unmanned vehicles to navigation and exploration.

Quantum Biotechnology

“…[79] Single NV-centers have been used to detect nanotesla magnetic fields at nanoscale, [42] while ensembles of NV-centers have allowed the detection of picotesla fields. [80,81] This sensitivity to local magnetic fields has been applied to measure the spin density of biomolecules and reconstruct 3D structures, [82] as well as to detect the action potential of a single neuron in a living worm [18] (see Figure 1b). Similar action potential measurements have also been made using atomicensemble-based quantum magnetometers, which also function by monitoring Zeeman splitting.…”

“…These shifts can be precisely readout, for example by a polarization measurement on a probe beam. [195] Recent advances in microfabrication [193,196] and improvements in sensitivity have enabled atomic magnetometers to reach and even surpass the sensitivity of SQUIDs, [81,197] and opened up applications and in brain imaging. [194] Atomic magnetometers work at room temperature and can be miniaturized to sizes considerably smaller than SQUID magnetometers.…”

How to build a magnetometer with thermal atomic vapors: A tutorial

“…Biomedical magnetomyography (MMG) [145,161], magnetoencephalography (MEG) [83,121,122,128,134,[162][163][164][165][166], (fetal) magnetocardiography (MCG and fMCG) [19,20,92,120,164,167], magnetic-field imaging (MFI) [168] magnetic biomarkers [124,[169][170][171][172] plant biomagnetism [173,174] Zero-/low-field NMR [125,126,139,[175][176][177][178][179]] Geophysics [85,180] Aerospace [102,181] Laser guide stars [182] Defense and industry underwater surveillance [135], electromagnetic induction imaging [183][184][185][186] Fundamental science search for new physics beyond particle standard model [38,76,…”

A Roadmap for Quantum Interconnects

“…Quantum sensors can play an important role within many technologies. For example, quantum sensing principles are already being used in applications such as GPS 64,65 and the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), 66 impacting everyday technologies and fundamental scientific discovery. In the term "quantum sensors," we include sensing architectures that require entanglement, as well as those that do not need quantum entanglement but make optical use of quantum mechanical principles in their design.…”