Wide-bandwidth atomic magnetometry via instantaneous-phase retrieval

Abstract

We develop and demonstrate a new protocol that allows sensing of magnetic fields in an extra-ordinary regime for atomic magnetometry. Until now, the demonstrated bandwidth for atomic magnetometry has been constrained to be slower than the natural precession of atomic spins in a magnetic field---the Larmor frequency. We demonstrate a new approach that tracks the instantaneous phase of atomic spins to measure arbitrarily modulated magnetic fields with frequencies up to fifty times higher than the Larmor frequency. By accessing this regime, we demonstrate magnetic-field measurements across four decades in frequency up to 400 kHz, over three orders of magnitude wider than conventional atomic magnetometers. Furthermore, we demonstrate that our protocol can linearly detect transient fields 100--fold higher in amplitude than conventional methods. We highlight the bandwidth and dynamic range of the technique by measuring a magnetic field with a broad and dynamical spectrum.