SPIE conference proceedings

Magnetometers are not only useful for Earth-based applications, but also very important for planetary science and heliophysics investigations. This is the reason they are flown on almost all missions in space. Heritage fluxgate magnetometers and optically-pumped atomic gas magnetometers are typically large in size, weight, and require watts of power to operate, preventing their infusion onto smaller platforms like CubeSats, drones, landers, and rovers. Here, we report on the development of a 4H silicon carbide (SiC) magnetometer, promising to be a low complexity, lightweight, low power, and inexpensive alternative to these heritage technologies. It measures magnetic field induced changes in spin dependent recombination (SDR) current within a pn junction, both in vector and scalar modes, thereby giving the instrument the ability to self-calibrate in the remoteness of space.