A nanosecond-resolved atomic hydrogen magnetometer

Abstract

We introduce a novel and sensitive ns-resolved atomic magnetometer, which is at least three orders of magnitude faster than conventional magnetometers. We use the magnetic field dependence of the hyperfine beating of high-density spin-polarized H atoms, produced from the rapid photodissociation of HCl gas with sub-ns laser pulses and measured with a pick-up coil, to demonstrate ns-resolved magnetometry, and project sensitivity of a few nT for a spin-projection-limited sensor with 10 nl measurement volume after 1 ns measurement time. The magnetometer will allow ultrafast continuous B-field measurements in many fields, including spin chemistry, spin physics, and plasma physics.