OPTICAL PUMPING MAGNETOMETER AND MAGNETIC SENSING METHOD

• Main Authors: KOBAYASHI TETSUO, MIZUTANI NATSUHIKO, ICHIHARA SUNAO, ITO YOSUKE
• Format: Patent
• Language: English; Japanese
• Published: 11.04.2016
• Subjects: MEASURING; MEASURING ELECTRIC VARIABLES; MEASURING MAGNETIC VARIABLES; PHYSICS; TESTING

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an optical pumping magnetometer that can separate and simultaneously acquire pieces of magnetic information at spatially different sites with a single probe light, and a magnetic sensing method.SOLUTION: The optical pumping magnetometer includes: one or a plurality of cells encapsulating alkali metal atoms; a pumping light optical system that projects a plurality of pumping beams having a circularly polarized component onto different positions in the one or the plurality of cells; a probe light optical system that projects a probe beam having a linearly polarized component to the cell to intersect the plurality of pumping beams entering the one or the plurality of cells; detection means that detects a signal reflecting a rotation angle of the polarization plane of the probe beam after intersecting the plurality of pumping beams; and information acquiring means that acquire information relating to the magnetic field intensity at each different position from the signal detected by the detection means. The pumping beam optical system includes modulation means that modulates the plurality of pumping beams to be different from each other in at least one of the frequency and the phase in the plurality of pumping beams.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1 【課題】１つのプローブ光で空間的に異なる場所の磁気情報を分離して同時に取得しうる光ポンピング磁力計及び磁気センシング方法を提供する。【解決手段】アルカリ金属原子を内包する１または複数のセルと、円偏光成分を有する複数のポンプ光を１または複数のセルの異なる位置に入射するポンプ光光学系と、１または複数のセルに入射した複数のポンプ光と交差するように直線偏光成分を有するプローブ光をセルに入射するプローブ光光学系と、複数のポンプ光と交差した後のプローブ光の偏光面の回転角を反映した信号を検出する検出手段と、検出手段により検出した信号から異なる位置の各々の磁場強度に関する情報を取得する情報取得手段とを有し、ポンプ光光学系は、複数のポンプ光の周波数及び位相のうちの少なくとも一方が互いに異なるように前記複数のポンプ光を変調する変調手段を有する。【選択図】図１