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Scanning Quantum Cryogenic Atom Microscope

Fan Yang, Alicia J. Kollár, Stephen F. Taylor, Richard W. Turner, and Benjamin L. Lev
Phys. Rev. Applied 7, 034026 – Published 27 March 2017
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Abstract

Microscopic imaging of local magnetic fields provides a window into the organizing principles of complex and technologically relevant condensed-matter materials. However, a wide variety of intriguing strongly correlated and topologically nontrivial materials exhibit poorly understood phenomena outside the detection capability of state-of-the-art high-sensitivity high-resolution scanning probe magnetometers. We introduce a quantum-noise-limited scanning probe magnetometer that can operate from room-to-cryogenic temperatures with unprecedented dc-field sensitivity and micron-scale resolution. The Scanning Quantum Cryogenic Atom Microscope (SQCRAMscope) employs a magnetically levitated atomic Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), thereby providing immunity to conductive and blackbody radiative heating. The SQCRAMscope has a field sensitivity of 1.4 nT per resolution-limited point (approximately 2μm) or 6nT/Hz per point at its duty cycle. Compared to point-by-point sensors, the long length of the BEC provides a naturally parallel measurement, allowing one to measure nearly 100 points with an effective field sensitivity of 600pT/Hz for each point during the same time as a point-by-point scanner measures these points sequentially. Moreover, it has a noise floor of 300 pT and provides nearly 2 orders of magnitude improvement in magnetic flux sensitivity (down to 106Φ0/Hz) over previous atomic probe magnetometers capable of scanning near samples. These capabilities are carefully benchmarked by imaging magnetic fields arising from microfabricated wire patterns in a system where samples may be scanned, cryogenically cooled, and easily exchanged. We anticipate the SQCRAMscope will provide charge-transport images at temperatures from room temperature to 4 K in unconventional superconductors and topologically nontrivial materials.

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  • Received 19 October 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.7.034026

© 2017 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Interdisciplinary PhysicsAtomic, Molecular & OpticalCondensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

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Sensing Magnetic Fields with a Giant Quantum Wave

Published 27 March 2017

A refined version of a Bose-Einstein-condensate microscope detects static magnetic fields near the surface of a chip with unprecedented sensitivity and over a wide temperature range.

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Authors & Affiliations

Fan Yang, Alicia J. Kollár, Stephen F. Taylor, Richard W. Turner, and Benjamin L. Lev

  • Departments of Physics and Applied Physics and Ginzton Laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA

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Vol. 7, Iss. 3 — March 2017

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