Travis Horrom
VSGC Abstract
4/18/2013
We have built an optical magnetometer based on the nonlinear Faraday effect in hot 87Rb vapor and
probe this device with both coherent light and polarization-squeezed light. We generate the squeezed
light states using the polarization self-rotation effect in Rb vapor, optimized for the highest noise
suppression, giving us a system which is all-atomic. By probing with polarization-squeezed states of
light, the magnetometer sensitivity is enhanced compared to a coherent probe for a certain range of
atomic densities in the magnetometer vapor cell. At high densities, interactions of the light probe with
the atoms add excess noise to the device and degrade the magnetometer performance.