In OPTEM, innovative concepts for optically pumped magnetometers (OPM) are developed and implemented, which will allow these sensors to be used for the method of transient electromagnetics (TEM) in geophysical exploration. For this method, a vector-type magnetic field measurement is required, which conventional OPMs together with the further requirements on the sensor (operation in the earth’s magnetic field, high bandwidth) set for the suitability in TEM cannot provide so far.

For this purpose, it is necessary to increase the usual operating range of amplitudes of the ambient magnetic fields that are tolerable for OPM, while the sensors must still achieve a magnetic field resolution in the range of 100fT/sqrt(Hz) in a frequency range down to about 1Hz and must have the signal bandwidth of greater than 500Hz that is required for TEM. These requirements will be met by using specially designed miniaturized OPM cells.

The demonstrators with the new OPM will be finally tested in the application scenario.

The project is funded by the BMBF as part of the funding program Quantum Technologies – from Fundamentals to Market with the funding code 13N15436 via the project management organization VDI.

Further information

Project partners:

Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), Bonn
Sekels GmbH, Ober-Mörlen
Supracon AG, Jena
Verein Deutscher Ingenieure (VDI), Düsseldorf