A Room-Temperature Pre-calibration Procedure for Gradiometer Sifting

In order to detect extremely weak magnetic signals, superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) gradiometers are widely used to suppress environmental noise. A hardware SQUID gradiometer consists of a niobium gradio-antenna and an SQUID, which are coupled via an input coil. Here gradiometer imbalance may greatly reduce its noise suppression performance. The gradiometer balance depends on the geometrical forms of the antenna wound by niobium wire. We describe a simple method based on Faraday's law for the pre-calibration of the gradiometer balance at room temperature, before the gradiometer is set up. The pre-calibrating results are compared with the measured balance of an SQUID gradiometer system. This method may be used for sifting hardware gradiometers for multi-channel systems. (cross-disciplinary physics and related areas of science and technology)