TECHNOLOGY LICENSING OPPORTUNITY: Multi-Channel Atomic Magnetometer (MCAM)

Read the official notice on SAM.gov

Summary from the notice

Unlike conventional multichannel atomic magnetometers that require one vapor cell and one optical system for each sensing channel, the patented Multi-Channel Atomic Magnetometer (MCAM) architecture from Los Alamos National Laboratory replaces many independent atomic magnetometers with a single shared vapor cell and optical system that simultaneously generates multiple independent sensing channels. MCAM is a non-cryogenic multi-channel optical quantum sensor in a single module that captures ultra-faint biomagnetic signals from the brain, heart and other sources with sensitivity approaching that of the cryogenic SQUID-based systems that have defined the field for decades. MCAM delivers that performance at roughly one-tenth the per-channel cost without a drop of liquid helium. The module pairs one large alkali-metal vapor cell with broad pump and probe laser beams read out by a photodiode array, providing 16 independent sensing channels in a single housing, scaling into helmet-style arrays of hundreds of channels, and flexing around the patient rather than forcing the patient into a fixed cryogenic dewar. Together, these attributes more easily allow for magnetoencephalography, magnetocardiography and magnetic-particle imaging while accelerating overall magnetic imaging workflows. Ongoing development is aimed at extending the sensing architecture from the centimeter scale characterized in the current prototype toward micrometer-scale spatial resolution, opening a path into cellul…

Other open NAICS 334516 notices