EPJ Quantum Technol. (2019) 6: 6
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

Abstract

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 M_z (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.