2024/04/02 by Xuting Yang, Yang, Xuting, Pritha Mukherjee +21 · 1 voice · 4 citations
Engineering · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Magnetic Field Sensors Techniques #Geophysical and Geoelectrical Methods #Magneto-Optical Properties and Applications
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2404.02102
We demonstrate atomic magnetometry using a metasurface polarizing beamsplitter fabricated on a silicon-on-sapphire (SOS) platform. The metasurface splits a beam that is near-resonant with the rubidium atoms (795 nm) into orthogonal linear polarizations, enabling measurement of magnetically sensitive circular birefringence in a rubidium vapor through balanced polarimetry. We incorporated the metasurface into an atomic magnetometer based on nonlinear magneto-optical rotation and measured sub-nanotesla sensitivity, which is limited by low-frequency technical noise and transmission loss through the metasurface. To our knowledge, this work represents the first demonstration of SOS nanophotonics for atom-based sensing and paves the way for highly integrated, miniaturized atomic sensors with enhanced sensitivity and portability.