This Phase II contract will continue development of a nonsuperconducting gradient magnetometer for noninvasive magnetoencephalography (MEG) employing the OPTECH proprietary resonant design approach. Performance of work under the contract shall be divided into two stages (Phase II A and Phase II B). Phase II A (six months and two weeks) shall be a feasibility study extending the validation of performance initiated in Phase I (i.e. development of a laboratory fiber-optic magnetic field sensor capable of detecting 10-12 Tesla magnetic activity) to include the full signal frequency range of 1 Hz to 1 kHz in the laboratory and not simply by inference or extrapolation of data. The Phase II A work shall also require demonstration of the vector nature of the fiber optic magnetometer (i.e. its ability to detect the directionality of the measured magnetic field). Performance of Phase II B (estimated 14 months) shall be devoted to further modification to make a commercial-grade device capable of detecting 10-14 Tesla magnetic activity, a sensitivity comparable to superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDS).
