Dong Ho Wu, Aaron M Dougherty
Among the various types of magnetic field sensors, only a few can detect magnetic fields non-intrusively, and even fewer offer ultra-wideband capability with an extreme dynamic range. In this report, we present a magneto-optic B-field probe that can detect a magnetic field with negligible perturbation to the field it detects. The probe is compact and has a frequency bandwidth of DC to 2 GHz. Furthermore, this technique achieves a dynamic range that significantly exceeds 100 dB by utilizing different magneto-optic materials. The device is an intrinsic vector-field sensor that can measure the direction, amplitude, and phase of a time-varying magnetic field. It offers several advantages, including a compact size, high sensitivity, room-temperature operation, a wide dynamic range, and vector-sensing capabilities across a broad frequency range. These features make it suitable for a variety of applications, such as RF and microwave testing, extreme low-frequency applications, and biomedical uses.