Light-shift-free and dead-zone-free atomic orientation based scalar magnetometry using a single amplitude-modulated beam

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel single-beam atomic magnetometry technique that eliminates detection dead zones and heading errors caused by light shifts, using a polarization-reversing cavity design.

Contribution

The authors introduce a polarization-reversing, path-bending cavity with a reflection mirror and half-wave plates to address dead zones and light shift-induced errors in scalar magnetometry.

Findings

Successfully eliminates detection dead zones.

Reduces heading errors caused by light shifts.

Demonstrates robustness and ease of application.

Abstract

Detection dead zones and heading errors induced by light shifts are two important problems in optically pumped scalar magnetometry. We introduce an atomic orientation based single-beam magnetometry scheme to simultaneously solve these problems, using a polarization-reversing and path-bending Herriott cavity. Here, a reflection mirror is inserted into the cavity to bend the optical paths in the middle, and divide them into two separated orthogonal regions to avoid the detection dead zone. Moreover, half-wave plates are added in the center of each optical region, so that the light polarization is flipped each time it passes the wave plates and the light shift effects are spatially averaged out. This operation is demonstrated to eliminate the unnoticed heading errors induced by ac light shifts. The methods developed in this paper are robust to use, and easy to be applied in other atomic devices.