TECHNOLOGY LICENSING OPPORTUNITY: Multi-Channel Atomic Magnetometer (MCAM)

Unlike conventional multichannel atomic magnetometers that require one vapor cell and one optical system for each sensing channel, the patented Multi-Channel Atomic Magnetometer (MCAM) architecture from Los Alamos National Laboratory replaces many independent atomic magnetometers with a single shared vapor cell and optical system that simultaneously generates multiple independent sensing channels. MCAM is a non-cryogenic multi-channel optical quantum sensor in a single module that captures ultra-faint biomagnetic signals from the brain, heart and other sources with sensitivity approaching that of the cryogenic SQUID-based systems that have defined the field for decades. MCAM delivers that performance at roughly one-tenth the per-channel cost without a drop of liquid helium. The module pairs one large alkali-metal vapor cell with broad pump and probe laser beams read out by a photodiode array, providing 16 independent sensing channels in a single housing, scaling into helmet-style arrays of hundreds of channels, and flexing around the patient rather than forcing the patient into a fixed cryogenic dewar. Together, these attributes more easily allow for magnetoencephalography, magnetocardiography and magnetic-particle imaging while accelerating overall magnetic imaging workflows. Ongoing development is aimed at extending the sensing architecture from the centimeter scale characterized in the current prototype toward micrometer-scale spatial resolution, opening a path into cellular-scale magnetic imaging that current cryogenic and room-temperature arrays cannot address.

How it Works

The MCAM module operates on the spin-exchange relaxation-free (SERF) regime, in which atomic spins of alkali-metal atoms inside a large, sealed vapor cell are aligned by a circularly polarized broad pump laser beam through optical pumping and then interrogated by a linearly polarized broad probe beam propagating along a nearly parallel path. An external magnetic field of interest tilts...