Miniaturized atomic sensors of magnetic field and inertia have great potential to be applied as geophysical instruments and in the detection of biomolecules. The distribution of the electronic spin polarization plays a key role as it defines the amount of noble gas that can achieve a state of hyperpolarization, which in turn determines the technique's accuracy and, consequently, its resolution. However, the current techniques for electronic spin polarization imaging are unsuited for the operating conditions of miniaturized atomic sensors besides only accomplishing submillimeter spatial resolution. In this study, optical magnetic resonance is applied to obtain electronic spin polarization images with a spatial resolution of 60  μm experimentally and 10  μm theoretically. This corresponds to an increase by one order of magnitude in resolution when compared to previous reports of electronic spin polarization imaging. By sweeping the RF frequency of the magnetic field while applying a magnetic field gradient of 0.22 [Formula: see text], it is possible to measure electronic spin polarization images for different average photon spins and pump beam positions. Spin polarization images present a high degree of correlation with pump beam images. Furthermore, this image method can be applied to suppressing the inhomogeneities in miniaturized cells, leading to a gain in signal-to-noise ratio. It also offers an opportunity to experimentally perform two-dimensional atomic polarization manipulation in the gas phase, optically transparent solids, and liquids.

The Xe isotope comagnetometer in the nuclear magnetic resonance regime can be used as a promising high-precision inertial measurement unit because of the absolute frequency measurement and high bandwidth. The fluctuation of the electron spin polarization leads to equivalent magnetic noise in the Xe isotope comagnetometer, which is one of the main factors limiting the stability of the comagnetometer. Here, we demonstrate systematic research of equivalent magnetic noise suppression and analyze the influence of the electron spin polarization on the Xe isotope comagnetometer. Based on the spin–exchange method between Xe isotopes and alkali metal atoms through the Fermi contact hyperfine interaction, the error equation of the Xe Larmor frequency is established. The equivalent magnetic noise can be suppressed by controlling the static magnetic field. This suppression method for Xe isotope comagnetometers improved the stability while maintaining high bandwidth. The experimental results show that this method can reduce the fluctuations of the 129Xe and 131Xe frequencies by 75% and 68.6%, respectively.

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