Abstract
A superconducting quantum magnetometer for high-sensitivity applications has been developed by exploiting the flux focusing of the superconducting loop. Unlike conventional dc SQUID magnetometers that use a superconducting flux transformer or a multiloop design, in this case, a very simple design has been employed. It consists of a bare dc SQUID with a large washer-shaped superconducting ring in order to guarantee a magnetic field sensitivity B(Φ) less than one nT/Φ(0). The degradation of the characteristics of the device due to an inevitable high value of the inductance parameter β(L) was successfully compensated by damping the inductance of the dc SQUID. The size of the magnetometer, coinciding with that of the washer, is 5 × 5 mm(2) and the spectral density of the magnetic field noise is 8 fT/√Hz with a low frequency noise knee of two Hz. The excellent performance of this simple magnetometer makes it usable for all high-sensitivity applications including magnetoencephalography.