Giant magneto-optical rotation effect in rubidium vapor measured with a low-cost detection system

With substantial improvements on the optical arrangement, we show that significant enhancement of the magneto-optical rotation effect in rubidium vapor can be achieved without using complex and expensive heterodyne polarimetric methods. The huge signal-to-noise ratio performance using low cost photo-detectors opens the door to chip-sized device manufacturing and in-situ applications in biomagnetism.