Permanent magnets are typically a no-go, because these sensors employ matter-wave interferometry, i.e. interference between atoms. Those unfortunately do not only react to gravity, but also to magnet fields, so these need to be suppressed as far as possible, especially gradients.
And yes, this will absolutely be a pulsed design.
I think, the breakthrough here is that they maintain a decent vacuum even without NEGs, which you can of course buy off the shelf, but they still tend to be quite bulky.
Also, they state a vacuum of about 10^{-7} torr. Far from UHV.
avsteele|4 years ago