By shining a precisely tuned laser through an atomic vapor, we can determine local mag-
netic field strength in scalar form and in a way that is not affected by temperature changes.
This technology has been used in space many times before on missions flown by NASA
and ESA, such as SWARM, Ă˜ersted, and CHAMP to calibrate accompanying vector mag-
netometers which are subject to offsets caused by temperature changes. The device we
constructed is a small, low-cost application of this scientific principle and opens up new
areas of scientific possibility for cubesats and the ability to define geomagnetic field struc-
tures on a small (<10km) scale as part of the ANDESITE cubesat mission being developed
at Boston University.
Previously, magnetic sensors in orbit have been flown individually on a single spacecraft
or in very small groups such as the International Sun-Earth Exporers (ISEE) and SWARM
which each used three separate spacecraft. This method of analyzing the geomagnetic field
cannot provide a spatial or time resolution smaller than that of the separation between
magnetic field readings. This project has focused on producing a tabletop demonstra-
tion of a compact sensor head which could enable measurements on unprecedented small
scales. Toward this end we have accomplished the construction and preliminary testing of
a compact sensor head which contains all necessary elements to function as a scalar atomic
magnetometer.
Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/16303 |
Date | 08 April 2016 |
Creators | Knechtel, Erik |
Source Sets | Boston University |
Language | en_US |
Detected Language | English |
Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
Rights | Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ |
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