Differential atomic magnetometry based on a diverging laser beam

The authors demonstrate a novel atomic magnetometer that uses differential detection of the spatially diverging components of a light field to monitor the Larmor precession frequency of atoms in a thermal vapor. The design is implemented in compact form with a micromachined alkali vapor cell and a naturally divergent light field emitted by a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser. Operating the magnetometer in differential mode cancels common-mode noise and improves the sensitivity by a factor of 26 over single-channel operation. They also suggest ways in which the current sensitivity of 28 pT/√Hz may be improved further without sacrificing size or simplicity.