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Ultrasensitive 3He magnetometer for measurements of high magnetic fields

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Abstract

We describe a 3He magnetometer capable to measure high magnetic fields (B> 0.1 T) with a relative accuracy of better than 10-12. Our approach is based on the measurement of the free induction decay of gaseous, nuclear spin polarized 3He following a resonant radio frequency pulse excitation. The measurement sensitivity can be attributed to the long coherent spin precession time T2 ∗ being of order minutes which is achieved for spherical sample cells in the regime of “motional narrowing” where the disturbing influence of field inhomogeneities is strongly suppressed. The 3He gas is spin polarized in situ using a new, non-standard variant of the metastability exchange optical pumping. We show that miniaturization helps to increase T2 ∗ further and that the measurement sensitivity is not significantly affected by temporal field fluctuations of order 10-4.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Physics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Staudingerweg 7, 55128, Mainz, Germany

    Anna Nikiel, Peter Blümler, Werner Heil, Sergej Karpuk, Andreas Maul & Ernst Otten

  2. Helmholtz-Institute Mainz, Johann-Joachim-Becherweg 36, 55128, Mainz, Germany

    Anna Nikiel

  3. MPI for Polymer Research, Ackermannweg 10, 55128, Mainz, Germany

    Manfred Hehn

  4. University Medical Center Mainz Langenbeckstrasse 1, 55131, Mainz, Germany

    Laura M. Schreiber & Maxim Terekhov

Authors
  1. Anna Nikiel
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  2. Peter Blümler
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  3. Werner Heil
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  4. Manfred Hehn
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  5. Sergej Karpuk
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  6. Andreas Maul
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  7. Ernst Otten
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  8. Laura M. Schreiber
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  9. Maxim Terekhov
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Correspondence to Werner Heil.

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Nikiel, A., Blümler, P., Heil, W. et al. Ultrasensitive 3He magnetometer for measurements of high magnetic fields. Eur. Phys. J. D 68, 330 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2014-50401-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2014-50401-3

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