Electronic high-temperature radio frequency superconducting quantum interference device gradiometers for unshielded environment (original) (raw)

This article will discuss improved electronically formed gradiometers based on high-temperature radio frequency ͑rf͒ superconducting quantum interference device ͑SQUID͒ magnetometers. For gradiometer balancing, a system of adjustable superconducting plates was developed. This technique was used to build first-and second-order, axial gradiometers with adjustable baselines, which operate at 77 K. Each magnetometer combines a washer rf-SQUID with bulk or a thin-film flux concentrator in flip chip geometry. In an unshielded environment, the magnetic field sensitivity in the white noise region is about 80 fT/ͱHz for first-order and 150 fT/ͱHz for second-order gradiometer. Common mode rejection could be balanced to better than 10 4 for uniform background fields and better than 200 for gradient fields.