Abstract

Atomic magnetometers optically pumped with resonance lamps have been explored and used in applications for more than 40 years [1]. After many improvements these devices have reached high level of performance and fundamental limits make further progress difficult. Development of reliable single mode diode lasers (DL) that can be tuned to D lines of alkali atoms [2,3] opened new possibilities such as increasing sensitivity of magnetic field measurements in multilayer shield with applications in encephalography [4] and cardiography [5] or dramatic decrease of the volume and power consumption in chip scale atomic magnetometers [6].

© 2009 IEEE