Cavity-enhanced Faraday rotation measurement with auto-balanced photodetection

Optical cavity enhancement for a tiny Faraday rotation is demonstrated with auto-balanced photodetection. This configuration is analyzed using the Jones matrix formalism. The resonant rotation signal is amplified, and thus, the angular sensitivity is improved. In the experiment, the air Faraday rotation is measured with an auto-balanced photoreceiver in single-pass and cavity geometries. The result shows that the measured Faraday rotation in the single-pass geometry is enhanced by a factor of 85 in the cavity geometry, and the sensitivity is improved to 7.54×10(-10)  rad Hz(-1/2), which agrees well with the Jones matrix analysis. With this verification, we propose an AC magnetic sensor whose magnetic sensitivity is expected to achieve 10  pT Hz(-1/2).