Optimization of a Coil System for Generating Uniform Magnetic Fields inside a Cubic Magnetic Shield

The active magnetic compensation coil

The active magnetic compensation coil is of great significance for extensive applications, such as fundamental physics, aerospace engineering, national defense industry, and biological science. The magnetic shielding demand is increasing over past few decades, and better performances of the coil are required. To maintain normal operating conditions for some sensors, active magnetic compensation coils are often used to implement near-zero field environments. Many coil design methods have been developed to design the active compensation coil for different fields. It is opportune to review the development and challenges associated with active magnetic compensation coils. Active magnetic compensation coils are reviewed in this paper in terms of design methods, technology, and applications. Furthermore, the operational principle and typical structures of the coil are elucidated. The developments of the forward design method, inverse design method, and optimization algorithm are presented. Principles of various design methods and their respective advantages and disadvantages are described in detail. Finally, critical challenges in the active magnetic compensation coil techniques and potential research directions have been highlighted.

A lightweight magnetically shielded room with active shielding

Magnetically shielded rooms (MSRs) use multiple layers of materials such as MuMetal to screen external magnetic fields that would otherwise interfere with high precision magnetic field measurements such as magnetoencephalography (MEG). Optically pumped magnetometers (OPMs) have enabled the development of wearable MEG systems which have the potential to provide a motion tolerant functional brain imaging system with high spatiotemporal resolution. Despite significant promise, OPMs impose stringent magnetic shielding requirements, operating around a zero magnetic field resonance within a dynamic range of ± 5 nT. MSRs developed for OPM-MEG must therefore effectively shield external sources and provide a low remnant magnetic field inside the enclosure. Existing MSRs optimised for OPM-MEG are expensive, heavy, and difficult to site. Electromagnetic coils are used to further cancel the remnant field inside the MSR enabling participant movements during OPM-MEG, but present coil systems are challenging to engineer and occupy space in the MSR limiting participant movements and negatively impacting patient experience. Here we present a lightweight MSR design (30% reduction in weight and 40-60% reduction in external dimensions compared to a standard OPM-optimised MSR) which takes significant steps towards addressing these barriers. We also designed a 'window coil' active shielding system, featuring a series of simple rectangular coils placed directly onto the walls of the MSR. By mapping the remnant magnetic field inside the MSR, and the magnetic field produced by the coils, we can identify optimal coil currents and cancel the remnant magnetic field over the central cubic metre to just |B|= 670 ± 160 pT. These advances reduce the cost, installation time and siting restrictions of MSRs which will be essential for the widespread deployment of OPM-MEG.

Bespoke magnetic field design for a magnetically shielded cold atom interferometer

Quantum sensors based on cold atoms are being developed which produce measurements of unprecedented accuracy. Due to shifts in atomic energy levels, quantum sensors often have stringent requirements on their internal magnetic field environment. Typically, background magnetic fields are attenuated using high permeability magnetic shielding, with the cancelling of residual and introduction of quantisation fields implemented with coils inside the shield. The high permeability shield, however, distorts all magnetic fields, including those generated inside the sensor. Here, we demonstrate a solution by designing multiple coils overlaid on a 3D-printed former to generate three uniform and three constant linear gradient magnetic fields inside the capped cylindrical magnetic shield of a cold atom interferometer. The fields are characterised in-situ and match their desired forms to high accuracy. For example, the uniform transverse field, B_x, deviates by less than 0.2% over more than 40% of the length of the shield. We also map the field directly using the cold atoms and investigate the potential of the coil system to reduce bias from the quadratic Zeeman effect. This coil design technology enables targeted field compensation over large spatial volumes and has the potential to reduce systematic shifts and noise in numerous cold atom systems.

Magnetic field influence analysis on the large-caliber steady-state magnetic field testing system

The large-caliber steady-state magnetic field testing system is an important device for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, which is mainly used for electromagnetic compatibility tests in a strong magnetic field environment. Magnetic field performance is the most important parameter of equipment. In the design process, it is necessary to analyze the magnetic field performance and study the influencing factors. This paper mainly studies the axial and radial magnetic fields in the uniform region and the magnetic field characteristics in several typical cases and then analyzes the influence of external ferromagnetic materials and the environmental magnetic field in detail. Finally, an experimental platform is built for a three-dimensional hall test. The results verify the correctness of the analysis.

Analytical design of axial magnetic coils with systematically improved uniformity for miniature quantum devices

We describe an analytical design method of shielding-coupled uniform magnetic coils for miniature quantum devices. The theoretical and simulation results point out that the 99% range along the symmetrical axis and the 50% range along the radius of the proposed m = 3 coils are uniform, and more important is that both the uniformity and the uniform region for these kinds of coils can be systematically improved only by adding more loops at specific places obtained from our analytical formula. A relevant experiment demonstrates the feasibility of this method and realizes the m = 3 coils with the inhomogeneity below 2.6 × 10^-3 along nearly the whole symmetrical axis. In addition, a practical technology to remove the influence of the shielding's nonideal gaps and openings is proposed and realized. All of these results are crucial for the miniaturization and high performance of quantum devices.

Balanced, bi-planar magnetic field and field gradient coils for field compensation in wearable magnetoencephalography

To allow wearable magnetoencephalography (MEG) recordings to be made on unconstrained subjects the spatially inhomogeneous remnant magnetic field inside the magnetically shielded room (MSR) must be nulled. Previously, a large bi-planar coil system which produces uniform fields and field gradients was used for this purpose. Its construction presented a significant challenge, six distinct coils were wound on two 1.6 × 1.6 m2 planes. Here, we exploit shared coil symmetries to produce coils simultaneously optimised to generate homogenous fields and gradients. We show nulling performance comparable to that of a six-coil system is achieved with this three-coil system, decreasing the strongest field component Bx by a factor of 53, and the strongest gradient dBx/dz by a factor of 7. To allow the coils to be used in environments with temporally-varying magnetic interference a dynamic nulling system was developed with a shielding factor of 40 dB at 0.01 Hz. Reducing the number of coils required and incorporating dynamic nulling should allow for greater take-up of this technology. Interactions of the coils with the high-permeability walls of the MSR were investigated using a method of images approach. Simulations show a degrading of field uniformity which was broadly consistent with measured values. These effects should be incorporated into future designs.

A New Approach to Calculate the Shielding Factor of Magnetic Shields Comprising Nonlinear Ferromagnetic Materials under Arbitrary Disturbances

To enable the realization of ultra-low magnetic fields for scientific and technological research, magnetic shielding is required to create a space with low residual magnetic field and high shielding factors. The shielding factors of magnetic shields are due to nonlinear material properties, the geometry and structure of the shields, and the external magnetic fields. Magnetic shielding is used in environments full of random realistic disturbances, resulting in an arbitrary and random external magnetic field, and in this case, the shielding effect is hard to define simply by the shielding factors. A new method to simulate and predict a dynamic internal space magnetic field wave is proposed based on the Finite Element method (FEM) combined with the Jiles-Atherton (JA) model. By simulating the hysteresis behavior of the magnetic shields and establishing a dynamic model, the new method can simulate dynamic magnetic field changes inside magnetic shields as long as the external disturbances are known. The shielding factors under an AC external field with a sine wave and certain frequencies are calculated to validate the feasibility of the new method. A real-time wave of internal magnetic flux density under an AC triangular wave external field is simulated directly with the new method versus a method that splits the triangular wave into several sine waves by a Fourier transform, divides the shielding factors, and then adds the quotients together. Moreover, real-time internal waves under some arbitrary fields are measured. Experimental internal magnetic flux density waves of a 4-layer magnetically shielded room (MSR) at the Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) fit the simulated results well, taking experimental errors into account.