Recent Progress in Optically Pumped Magnetometers

Alexandrov, E. B.

doi:10.1238/physica.topical.105a00027

Cited by 44 publications

(24 citation statements)

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“…We show that synchronous pumping of quantum revivals largely recovers the signal loss. In addition, we demonstrate that it generates a symmetric resonance lineshape, reducing a systematic effect endemic to most alkali-metal magnetometers, known as a heading error, that causes changes in the measured absolute value of the magnetic field depending on the orientation of the magnetometer with respect to the magnetic field vector [23]. We expect that synchronous pumping of revivals can be also used to improve the precision and accuracy of spectroscopic measurements on other multi-level systems.…”

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confidence: 82%

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Synchronous optical pumping of quantum revival beats for atomic magnetometry

2007

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We observe quantum beats with periodic revivals due to non-linear spacing of Zeeman levels in the ground state of potassium atoms and demonstrate their synchronous optical pumping by double modulation of the pumping light at the Larmor frequency and the revival frequency. We show that synchronous pumping increases the degree of spin polarization by a factor of 4. As a practical example, we explore the application of this double-modulation technique to atomic magnetometers operating in the geomagnetic field range and find that it can increase the sensitivity and reduce magnetic field orientation-dependent measurement errors endemic to alkali-metal magnetometers.PACS numbers: 07.55. Ge, 42.50.Md, 32.30.Dx, 32.80.Bx Periodic revival of quantum beats is a general phenomenon that occurs in multi-level systems with nonlinear energy level spacing [1,2] and has been observed in diverse systems, from one-atom masers [3] and Rydberg states in atoms [4] to molecular vibrational [5] and rotational [6] states. Recently molecular rotational revivals attracted significant attention because of the possibility of using them for alignment of molecules with ultrashort laser pulses [7,8,9,10]. It has been proposed that periodic laser pulses could be used to increase the degree of molecular alignment and maintain it indefinitely [11,12,13,14]. An increase of molecular alignment using two pulses has been demonstrated in [15].Here we show experimentally that appropriately synchronized train of laser pulses can increase in the degree of spin orientation and maintain it indefinitely by synchronously pumping quantum revivals in the groundstate Zeeman levels of an alkali-metal atom. Periodic revivals of quantum beats in Zeeman levels of alkalimetal atoms occur naturally due to non-linear Breit-Rabi mixing [16] and have been modeled in [17]. We observe quantum revivals in K atoms and demonstrate their synchronous pumping by double modulation of the pump laser at both the Larmor and the revival frequencies. We find that it creates a coherently oscillating superposition state with a spin polarization a factor of 4 higher than can be obtained without double modulation for the same average laser power. We also model the effects in other alkali atoms and find that the amount of polarization enhancement increases for systems with a larger number of quantum states.Because the revivals occur in geomagnetic field range of about 0.5 G, our experiments are also directly applicable to optically-pumped alkali-metal magnetometers, which are used in many applications, from archaeology [18] and mineral exploration [19] to searches for a CPviolating electric dipole moment [20]. As was recently discussed in [21,22], Breit-Rabi mixing of Zeeman levels decreases magnetometer sensitivity by splitting the Zeeman resonance into many separate lines. We show that synchronous pumping of quantum revivals largely recovers the signal loss. In addition, we demonstrate that it generates a symmetric resonance lineshape, reducing a systematic effect endemic to most alk...

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confidence: 82%

“…The heading errors in atomic magnetometers can be simply understood as resulting from overlap of the multiple Zeeman resonances [23]. For well-resolved resonances, as in Fig.…”

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confidence: 99%

Synchronous optical pumping of quantum revival beats for atomic magnetometry

2007

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“…51 In the Mx mode, the phase of the photodiode signal at the drive frequency is compared with the phase of the drive frequency itself, and a dispersive error signal is generated as this frequency is scanned across the magnetic resonance line. In the Mz mode, the DC photodiode signal is used to measure the magnitude of the projection of the spin precession onto the magnetic field axis.…”

Section: Vapor Cell Atomic Magnetometersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chip-scale atomic devices

Kitching

2018

Applied Physics Reviews

417

175

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“…Atomic magnetometry [2] is based on measuring the Lamor precession of atomic spins in a magnetic field. Atoms can be spin-polarized by optical pumping technique, a process of transferring the angular momentum of photons in a laser to the atomic spins, thereby creating spin coherence among atoms.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%