A Compact, High Performance Atomic Magnetometer for Biomedical Applications

We present a highly sensitive room-temperature atomic magnetometer (AM), designed for use in biomedical applications. The magnetometer sensor head is only 2x2x5 cm^3 and it is constructed using readily available, low-cost optical components. The magnetic field resolution of the AM is <10 fT/sqrt(Hz), which is comparable to cryogenically cooled superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) magnetometers. We present side-by-side comparisons between our AM and a SQUID magnetometer, and show that equally high quality magnetoencephalography (MEG) and magnetocardiography (MCG) recordings can be obtained using our AM.