Description: This Phase I SBIR project will investigate a new, low-cost approach to atomic magnetometry that is suited for operation from UAVs and research balloons. Atomic magnetometers have been available for decades, but they remain expensive and relatively power-hungry, restricting their use to a small range of platforms. The proposed approach should result in a magnetometer selling at a cost point significantly below that of conventional atomic magnetometers that can be deployed on UAVs and stratospheric balloons. The Phase II research will involve constructing a prototype and flying it on a research balloon or UAV to study phenomena such as Electro-Magnetic Ion Cyclotron waves in the magnetosphere at altitudes of Data from these platforms will fill a scientific niche, as the Earth's field is undersampled at the spatial wavelengths of 30-100 km associated with stratospheric flight.

Benefits: Magnetic sampling of Earth's field from UAVs and stratospheric balloons. Static maps of fields are important for understanding Earth's lithosphere. Dynamic measurements are needed for research into energy dissipation of the magnetosphere into Electro-Magnetic Ion Cyclotron waves and Chorus waves. Such studies would combine our magnetometer measurements with data from other missions such as the Radiation Belt Storm Probes mission, BARREL, or the NOAA Polar Operational Environmental (POES) satellite.

Airborne magnetometers are used in mineral exploration and for anti-mine and anti-submarine warfare. They are also used for artifact detection at archeologic sites. Other potential applications include low field magnetic resonance imaging for medical diagnostics and low field magnetic resonance spectroscopy for chemical analysis.