Young Kim and Igor Savukov at Los Alamos National Labs demonstrate a new room temperature magnetic microscope. They used QZFM as the sensor element and a ferrite flux guide to transport magnetic field from a tiny test object to the sensor. In their experimental work, the authors used a 0.75 mm coil as the test… Read more »

Hari Eswaran and coworkers at the University of Arkansas published results from a head-on comparison between fetal Magnetocardiography recordings made with a SQUID system (CTF, 151 sensor SARA) and an OPM system (QuSpin, 2 sensors). The authors conclude: “Our preliminary results indicate that OPMs are potentially capable of replacing SQUIDs for fMCG systems. With further studies, we… Read more »

The picture above shows one our very early OPM prototypes (made back in Dec. 2012) which helped convince ourselves (and NIH) the feasibility of building practical, non-cryogenic sensors to potentially replace the SQUIDs. The prototypes were fragile and needed fiber-coupled external high power lasers and complex laboratory electronics, but the performance was very good even in the… Read more »