text: Magnetometers based on atomic gasses can perform vector measurements of the magnetic field in the low field regime, where the decay of the atomic coherence becomes faster than the Larmor frequency. The physics of such magnetometers is based on the Hanle effect. Such zero-field optically pumped magnetometers have been tested in various configurations and with different atomic species, notably alkali (potassium, rubidium and cesium), helium and mercury. For the case of alkali, the coherence times were greatly limited due to spin-exchange relaxation. A major breakthrough happened at the beginning of the 2000 decade, Romalis group in Princeton demonstrated that in such a low field regime, alkali coherence times can be greatly enhanced if a high enough density can be reached by high temperature heating, this is the so-called SERF effect.
  The main interest of optically-pumped magnetometers is to replace SQUID magnetometers in applications where cryogenic cooling is a drawback. This is notably the case of medical imaging where such cooling imposes a thick thermal insulation, strongly affecting the amplitude of the recorded biomagnetic signals. Several startup companies are currently developing optically pumped magnetometers for biomedical applications: those of TwinLeaf, quSpin and FieldLine being based on alkali vapors, and those of Mag4Health on metastable helium-4.