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Flexible High Performance Magnetic Field Sensors pp 79–110Cite as

Tri-axial Helium-4 Optically Pumped Magnetometers for MEG

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Abstract

From the first proof of concept MEG recordings with Optically Pumped Magnetometer (OPM) 15 years ago, these new sensors have demonstrated to be an interesting alternative to cryogenics sensors for biomagnetic measurements. The most commonly used OPM are alkali based OPMs but this chapter will introduce a new kind of OPM, based on Helium atoms and particularly well-suited to perform biomagnetic recordings. We will describe the history of these sensors, introduce in an elementary way the physics of laser-pumped atomic systems which are used in these Helium OPMs. This chapter will also report the first proofs of concept performed in magnetocardiography (MCG) as well as Magnetoencephalography (MEG) and the last advances with a first multichannel MEG system as well as the perspectives for these OPM.

Keywords

  • Helium
  • Optically pumped magnetometers
  • Room temperature
  • Parametric resonance
  • Linear polarization
  • Biomagnetic fields
  • Bandwidth
  • Dynamic range
  • Three axes measurement
  • Magnetoencephalography
  • Magnetocardiography

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Note that our \(m_{q}^{(k)}\) are the complex conjugate to the ones used by Antoine Weis [10, 65]. We made this choice in order to keep a formalism similar to the one of orientation in the seminal PRM description made in ENS [19].

  2. 2.

    In contrast with [4] we made the choice here to keep M ss equal to the usual three-step approach steady-state and to reincorporate the factor 2 in the prefactor. Although both approaches yield the same results, the present one allows interpreting M ss as the value of M when optical pumping dominates all the other phenomena.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France

    A. Palacios-Laloy, M. Le Prado & E. Labyt

  2. Mag4Health, Grenoble, France

    A. Palacios-Laloy, M. Le Prado & E. Labyt

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  1. A. Palacios-Laloy
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  1. Mag4Health, Grenoble, France

    Etienne Labyt

  2. Biosignals (Magnetoencephalography), Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Berlin, Germany

    Tilmann Sander

  3. Medical Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA

    Ronald Wakai

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Palacios-Laloy, A., Le Prado, M., Labyt, E. (2022). Tri-axial Helium-4 Optically Pumped Magnetometers for MEG. In: Labyt, E., Sander, T., Wakai, R. (eds) Flexible High Performance Magnetic Field Sensors. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05363-4_6

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