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 2 x 2 x 5 cm(3) and is constructed using readily available, low-cost optical components. The magnetic field resolution of the AM is < 10 fT Hz(-1/2), which is comparable to cryogenically cooled superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) magnetometers. We present side-byside comparisons between our AM and a SQUID magnetometer, and show that equally high quality magnetoencephalography and magnetocardiography recordings can be obtained using our AM.