We studied different schemes of noise reduction using active compensation of environmental magnetic field noises in order to develop a high-temperature-superconductor (HTS) magnetometer system for the measurement of magnetocardiographic signals. The active compensation was combined with weak passive shielding of about 20 dB by the use of a magnetically shielded room (MSR) having a single layer of surrounding μ-metal. A novel method using a normal detection coil and compensation coils that were wound around the walls of the MSR to enable magnetic coupling was examined. Effective suppression of environmental field noises of more than 20 dB at 0.5–10 Hz and 10 dB at 10–100 Hz, covering the low-frequency range of biological signals, was obtained. In an alternative method using a reference HTS magnetometer in the MSR for noise detection, a compensation coil was set in the MSR and served as a feedback coil in operating the magnetometer. Residual field noises that were limited by the intrinsic noise of the reference magnetometer were obtained. Using such active compensation and weak passive shielding, measurement of magnetocardiogram was possible with a sensing HTS magnetometer in a wide frequency range of 0.5–100 Hz.

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The ac bias method is used in the readout system of dc-superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) to suppress the low-frequency noise that originates in the fluctuation of parameters of two junctions in the SQUID. From the analysis of various schemes of the ac bias method, we propose a simple form which expresses the alternation of the operation variables, i.e., the bias current, modulation flux, and bias flux. We considered the modification of the previous schemes in the context of this form and have found a possible method to directly detect the noise component due to the parameter fluctuation. In the modified ac bias scheme, the low-frequency noise of the parameter fluctuation can either be detected or suppressed by manipulating a single variable. We fabricated the electronics to verify this function, and confirmed the versatility of this method from the measurements of the high-T C SQUID.

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