An all-optical intrinsic atomic gradiometer with sub-20 fT/cm/$\sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}}$ sensitivity in a 22 $\mu$T earth-scale magnetic field

Abstract

In this work we demonstrate a high sensitivity atomic gradiometer capable of operation in earth-field level environments. We apply a light-pulse sequence at four times the Larmor frequency to achieve gradiometer sensitivity <20 fT/cm/$\sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}}$ at the finite field strength of 22 $\mu$T. The experimental timing sequence can be tuned to the field magnitude of interest. Our one dimensional all-optical gradiometer performs a differential measurement between two regions of a single vapor cell on a 4 cm baseline. Our results pave the way for extensions to operation in higher dimensions, vector sensitivity, and more advanced gradiometers.

References in corpus (2)

• A microfabricated optically-pumped magnetic gradiometer
• Optical Magnetometer Array for Fetal Magnetocardiography

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