Magnetometer
First Claim
1. A magnetometer comprising,a cell of gas having unpaired electrons,means for transmitting a non-continuous pulse of energy through the cell at a frequency corresponding to a transition of the gas, and,means for obtaining the frequency of the resulting unreinforced free precession of the aligned angular moments of the atoms of the gas about the local magnetic field at said gas cell after the passage of said pulse through said cell, said frequency being proportional to the local magnetic field at said gas cell.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A magnetometer is desclosed in which a gas cell containing atomic vapor is pulse pumped at one of the transitions of the gas in the cell. After the pulse has passed through the gas cell, thereby causing alignment of all the individual atomic moments along the propagation direction of the pulse, a probe beam reads out the Larmor precession frequency of the freely precessing atoms in terms of the frequency of the amplitude modulation of the probe beam caused by the free precession within the gas cell. The system is suitable for laboratory measurements of the absolute value of a magnetic field and for packaging in an expendable battery powered water-born buoy becuase of the low power consumption of the subject system.
135 Citations
32 Claims
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1. A magnetometer comprising,
a cell of gas having unpaired electrons, means for transmitting a non-continuous pulse of energy through the cell at a frequency corresponding to a transition of the gas, and, means for obtaining the frequency of the resulting unreinforced free precession of the aligned angular moments of the atoms of the gas about the local magnetic field at said gas cell after the passage of said pulse through said cell, said frequency being proportional to the local magnetic field at said gas cell.
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15. A method of detecting magnetic field strength comprising the steps of:
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providing a volume of gas having atoms with unpaired electrons, pumping the atoms with a non-continuous pulse of energy at a predetermined transition of said atoms so as to align the magnetic moments of the atoms of said gas in a single direction, and so as to cause unreinforced free precession of the magnetic moments of said atoms about the local magnetic field vector, and, obtaining the frequency of said unreinforced free precession, the strength of said local magnetic field being proportional to said frequency. - View Dependent Claims (16)
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17. A system for detecting the presence of ocean going vessels comprising;
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a water-born buoy including a battery-operated magnetometer including a cell of gas having unpaired electrons, means for transmitting a non-continuous pulse of energy through the cell at a frequency corresponding to a transition of the gas, means for obtaining the frequency of the resulting unreinforced free precession of the aligned angular moments of the atoms of the gas about the local magnetic field at said gas cell after the passage of said pulse through said cell, said frequency being proportional to the local magnetic field at said gas cell and means for transmitting a signal indicative of said frequency to a location remote from said buoy, and means at said remote location for receiving said transmitted signal. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32)
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Specification