2016/02/29 by Derek F. Jackson Kimball, Alexander O. Sushkov, Dmitry Budker · 82 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research #Condensed matter physics #Ferromagnetism #Magnetic Field Sensors Techniques #Magnetic field #Magnetometer #Materials science #Nuclear magnetic resonance #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics #cond-mat.mes-hall #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.116.190801
published in Physical Review Letters 116(19), 190801 (American Physical Society) · Main text: 6 pages, 2 figures; Supplementary material: 3 pages, 1 figure
arxiv created 2016/04/20 · openalex publication_date 2016/05/13 · arxiv updated 2016/05/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
A ferromagnetic needle is predicted to precess about the magnetic field axis at a Larmor frequency Ω under conditions where its intrinsic spin dominates over its rotational angular momentum, Nℏ≫IΩ (I is the moment of inertia of the needle about the precession axis and N is the number of polarized spins in the needle). In this regime the needle behaves as a gyroscope with spin Nℏ maintained along the easy axis of the needle by the crystalline and shape anisotropy. A precessing ferromagnetic needle is a correlated system of N spins which can be used to measure magnetic fields for long times. In principle, by taking advantage of rapid averaging of quantum uncertainty, the sensitivity of a precessing needle magnetometer can far surpass that of magnetometers based on spin precession of atoms in the gas phase. Under conditions where noise from coupling to the environment is subdominant, the scaling with measurement time t of the quantum- and detection-limited magnetometric sensitivity is t-3/2. The phenomenon of ferromagnetic needle precession may be of particular interest for precision measurements testing fundamental physics.