We report on the Earth's rotation measurement using a K-Rb-${}^{21}\mathrm{Ne}$ comagnetometer. The steady-state responses of the nuclear- and electronic-spin polarizations therein have been shown. The light shift arising from the circularly polarized pump laser beam enables the comagnetometer to sense dual-axis rotations. This feasibility has been emphasized and verified by numerical simulation. We believe that this sensor could be used in any application requiring compact size, low cost, and high-precision inertial navigation.

We describe a dual-axis atomic spin gyroscope based on an alkali metal-noble gas comagnetometer. Alkali metal vapor is optically pumped, and then the noble gas is hyperpolarized along the z axis. When sensing a transverse rotation, the polarized noble gas will be induced to precess and produce an effective magnetic field in the x – y plane for alkali metals to precess under. Operating in the spin-exchange relaxation-free regime, alkali atoms are modulated by the z axis magnetic field and serve as an integrated in-situ dual-axis magnetometer to detect the gyroscopic precession in the x and y axes simultaneously, using a single probe beam. By using the parametric modulation technique, the low frequency drift is effectively suppressed and a bias instability of less than 0.05 deg/h has been achieved in our dual-axis atomic spin gyroscope.

Here we demonstrate an atomic magnetometer that has a bandwidth of more than 100 kHz and a sensitivity of $180\mathrm{fT/}\surd \mathrm{Hz}$ at a Fourier frequency of 8 Hz, and $0.7\mathrm{nT/}\surd \mathrm{Hz}$ at 100 kHz. These sensitivity measurements are achieved at geophysically useful magnetic field magnitudes (approximately $50\mu \mathrm{T}$ inside a three-layer $\mu$-metal shield) and are limited by the photon shot noise for frequencies above 8 Hz. This device is based on a nonlinear magneto-optical rotation sensor that is operated with an active feedback to the pump modulation frequency. We present a theoretical description of the response functions of the components in the magnetometer. We show that the range of operation of atomic magnetometers can thus be expanded beyond the conventional high-sensitivity, low-bandwidth domain, to provide a high-linearity, high-bandwidth, and high-sensitivity sensor.

In the optically pumped systems, the spin polarization of the atoms is generally derived by employing additional modulations, in which way an extra perturbation will be introduced and thus affect the normal operation of the sensors. By investigating the absorption principle of the circularly polarized pump laser, here we demonstrate the feasibility of extracting the electron-spin polarization from the transmitted intensity of the pump beam. This scheme can detect real-time polarization without disturbing the normal operation of the sensor, and the experimental result agrees well with the theory. This research is of value to the research and development of optically pumped systems, especially the magnetometer and the comagnetometer operated in the SERF regime.