In situ measurement of residual magnetic field in SERF atomic magnetometer based on transient response

Maintaining a near-zero magnetic field condition is a requisite for atomic magnetometer under the spin-exchange relaxation-free (SERF) regime. Therefore, the precise determination of the residual magnetic fields is of great significance. Herein, we proposed an in-situ measurement method of residual magnetic fields in a dual-beam atomic magnetometer based on a transient response of the transverse polarization along the probe beam direction after switching off the pump beam. Proceeding from the Bloch equation, we established a complete evolution expression of the polarization vector under any static residual magnetic field with the pump beam switched off. On this basis, we analyzed the transient response of the transverse polarization by numerical simulation under different situations of residual magnetic fields. Besides, we also considered two possible conditions when the residual magnetic fields are relatively large or small, respectively. Accordingly, we presented an efficient and convenient estimation method of the residual magnetic fields based on certain time characteristics of the transient response. We verified the feasibility of our method by experiment and achieved a triaxial residual magnetic fields measurement within 0.5 s. This method can realize an in situ and real-time measurement of the residual magnetic fields in a fast and convenient way. Furthermore, this method can evaluate the effectiveness of different magnetic field compensation methods without introducing any modulation or extra devices.