A beamsplitter is arranged to split an incident laser beam into a pump beam and a detection beam. The pump beam passes through the beam splitter and then reflects from a pair of mirrors to a quarter waveplate into an NMR cell. After passing through the NMR cell, the pump beam reflects from a mirror to a first photodetector. The detection beam reflects from the beam splitter and propagates on a path perpendicular to the path of the pump beam through the NMR cell. After passing through the NMR cell, the detection beam is incident upon a polarizer. The polarized portion of the detection beam then is incident upon a photodetector. Electrical signals output from the first and second photodetectors may then be processed to determine the rotation rate of the NMR cell about a sensing axis.