https://doi.org/10.1140/epjqt/s40507-019-0076-9
Research
Performance analysis of an optically pumped magnetometer in Earth’s magnetic field
1
Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology, Jena, Germany
2
Supracon AG, Jena, Germany
* e-mail: gregor.oelsner@leibniz-ipht.de
Received:
18
June
2019
Accepted:
4
December
2019
Published online:
12
December
2019
We experimentally investigate the influence of the orientation of optically pumped magnetometers in Earth’s magnetic field. We focus our analysis to an operational mode that promises femtotesla field resolutions at such field strengths. For this so-called light-shift dispersed Mz (LSD-Mz) regime, we focus on the key parameters defining its performance. That are the reconstructed Larmor frequency, the transfer function between output signal and magnetic field amplitude as well as the shot noise limited field resolution. We demonstrate that due to the use of two well balanced laser beams for optical pumping with different helicities the heading error as well as the field sensitivity of a detector both are only weakly influenced by the heading in a large orientation angle range.
Key words: Optically pumped magnetometers / Heading error / Optical pumping / Bloch equations
© The Author(s), 2019
