Helium-4 magnetometers for room-temperature biomedical imaging: toward collective operation and photon-noise limited sensitivity

Optically-pumped magnetometers constitute a valuable tool for imaging biological magnetic signals without cryogenic cooling. Nowadays, numerous developments are being pursued using alkali-based magnetometers, which have demonstrated excellent sensitivities in the spin-exchange relaxation free (SERF) regime that requires heating to >100 °C. In contrast, metastable helium-4 based magnetometers work at any temperature, which allows a direct contact with the scalp, yielding larger signals and a better patient comfort. However former 4 He magnetometers displayed large noises of >200 fT/Hz 1/2 with 300-Hz bandwidth. We describe here an improved magnetometer reaching a sensitivity better than 50 fT/Hz 1/2 , nearly the photon shot noise limit, with a bandwidth of 2 kHz. Like other zero-field atomic magnetometers, these magnetometers can be operated in closed-loop architecture reaching several hundredths nT of dynamic range. A small array of 4 magnetometers operating in a closed loop has been tested with a successful correction of the cross-talks.