Analysis and Suppression of Thermal Magnetic Noise of Ferrite in the SERF Co-Magnetometer

Abstract

The ferrite magnetic shield is widely used in ultra-high-sensitivity atomic sensors because of its low noise characteristics. However, its noise level varies with temperature and affects the performance of the spin-exchange relaxation-free (SERF) co-magnetometer. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze and suppress the thermal magnetic noise. In this paper, the thermal magnetic noise model of a ferrite magnetic shield is established, and the thermal magnetic noise of ferrite is calculated more accurately by testing the low-frequency complex permeability at different temperatures. A temperature suppression method based on the improved heat dissipation efficiency of the ferrite magnetic shield is also proposed. The magnetic noise of the ferrite is reduced by 46.7%. The experiment is basically consistent with the theory. The sensitivity of the co-magnetometer is decreased significantly, from 1.21 × 10−5°/s/Hz1/2 to 7.02 × 10−6°/s/Hz1/2 at 1 Hz. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. In addition, the study is also helpful for evaluating the thermal magnetic noise of other materials.