Yttrium-iron garnet magnetometer in MEG: Advance towards multi-channel arrays

Recently, a new kind of sensor applicable in magnetoencephalography (MEG) has been presented: a solid-state yttrium-iron garnet magnetometer (YIGM). The feasibility of YIGM was proved in alpha-rhythm registration experiment. In the current paper, we propose the analysis of lead-field matrices for different possible YIGM multichannel on-scalp sensor layouts with respect to the information theory. We use real noise level of the new sensor to compute signal power, signal-to-noise ration (SNR) and total information capacity, and compare them with corresponding metrics that can be obtained with well-established MEG systems: based on superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) and optically-pumped magnetometers (OPMs). This simulation study is aimed to shed some light on the direction for further development of YIGM sensor, namely creation of multi-channel YIG-MEG.