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Levy, C.S.; Kornack, T.W.; Mercier, P.P. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
University of California at San Diego,
La Jolla, CA, USA

Twinleaf LLC,
Plainsboro Township, NJ, USA

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
University of California at San Diego,
La Jolla, CA, USA 2019 Physics
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Bell-Bloom Magnetometer Linearization by Intensity Modulation Cancellation

IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement.
Levy, C.S.; Kornack, T.W.; Mercier, P.P. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
University of California at San Diego,
La Jolla, CA, USA

Twinleaf LLC,
Plainsboro Township, NJ, USA

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
University of California at San Diego,
La Jolla, CA, USA 2019 Physics

This paper describes a technique for enhancing the linearity of a Bell-Bloom optical magnetometer. Both the Mₓ and Bell-Bloom magnetometers are examined, and the characteristics of their photodetector signals are compared. It is noted that the phase signal has better linearity than the quadrature amplitude signal for a Mₓ magnetometer, while phase and quadrature amplitude give similar performance in Bell-Bloom.

A cancellation technique is proposed whereby the laser intensity modulation of Bell-Bloom is mitigated to improve the linearity. A cesium microfabricated atomic magnetometer in a frequency-locked-loop configuration is demonstrated, and the improved slew rate and frequency-domain linearity are shown. This linearity enhancement should prove useful for operating atomic magnetometers in interference-rich environments outside of magnetic shields.

The article was published in: IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement.

Full article

This work was supported (in part) by the Fetzer Franklin Fund of the John E. Fetzer Memorial Trust.