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arXiv:2108.13226 · Applied Physics Letters

Enhancement of electromagnetically induced transparency based Rydberg-atom electrometry through population repumping

Nikunjkumar Prajapati, Amy K. Robinson, Samuel Berweger, Matthew T. Simons, Alexandra B. Artusio‐Glimpse, Christopher L. Holloway

Published Nov 22, 2021• 93 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We demonstrate improved sensitivity of Rydberg electrometry based on electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) with a ground state repumping laser. Though there are many factors that limit the sensitivity of radio frequency field measurements, we show that repumping can enhance the interaction strength while avoiding additional Doppler or power broadening. Through this method, we nearly double the EIT amplitude without an increase in the width of the peak. A similar increase in amplitude without the repumping field is not possible through simple optimization. We also establish that one of the key limits to detection is the photon shot noise of the probe laser. We show an improvement on the sensitivity of the device by a factor of nearly 2 in the presence of the repump field.

DOI
10.1063/5.0069195

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We demonstrate improved sensitivity of Rydberg electrometry based on electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) with a ground state repumping laser. Though there are many factors that limit the sensitivity of radio frequency field measurements, we show that repumping can enhance the interaction strength while avoiding additional Doppler or power broadening. Through this method, we nearly double the EIT amplitude without an increase in the width of the peak. A similar increase in amplitude without the repumping field is not possible through simple optimization. We also establish that one of the key limits to detection is the photon shot noise of the probe laser. We show an improvement on the sensitivity of the device by a factor of nearly 2 in the presence of the repump field.
Rydberg-atom electrometry is a core technique in the development of highly sensitive quantum electric-field sensors. Its sensitivity based on atom-photon interaction is typically limited by photon shot-noise (PSN) and spectral broadenings. Here, we experimentally demonstrate a near PSN-limited Rydberg electrometry from a 85Rb atomic vapor cell. By engineering atomic coherence through control of residual magnetic fields and laser frequency noise, we achieve the Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) with the narrow linewidth of 1.6 MHz, yielding an enhanced spectral slope for high-sensitivity Rydberg-EIT electrometry. Under optimized superheterodyne detection conditions, we obtain an electric-field sensitivity of 12.5(8) nV cm^-1 Hz^-1/2 at 37 GHz, in close agreement with the calculated PSN limit. These results provide direct experimental evidence of the high-sensitive quantum electrometry and establish a practical route toward quantum-noise-limited Rydberg electrometry.
Rydberg atom electrometry offers traceable electric field measurements over many decades of radio frequencies in a single device. Miniaturization of these sensors is primarily limited by the requirements of the lasers used. Here, we demonstrate a three-photon sensing scheme using a J-shaped energy level coupling that can be achieved using external cavity diode lasers without the need for a doubling crystal or a tapered amplifier. In the low laser power regime, we demonstrate a full width at half maximum linewidth of 1.3 MHz. We demonstrate that, for radio frequency field electrometry using conventional heterodyne techniques, we can detect a 4.7 GHz at a sensitivity of 27 μV m−1 Hz−1/2, comparable to that of two-photon detection schemes that require the use of a tapered amplifier. We also investigate a modified scheme where the probe laser is locked to a different hyperfine state, thus measuring the two-photon electromagnetically induced transparency in the other two lasers via the change in population of this separate state due to repumping. In this scheme, we find the sensitivity for a 4.7 GHz field to be 39 μV m−1 Hz−1/2 and demonstrate that the amplitude scaling with probe power offers a different saturation profile than the linked J-scheme counterpart.
Rydberg atom-based electrometry based on electromagnetic induced transparency (EIT) and Autler–Townes splitting (EIT-AT) could achieve ultra-high sensitivity measurements. The amplitude and linewidth of EIT spectra significantly impact the accuracy of electric field measurements. This research utilizes cascade diffraction gratings to generate 2×2 probe laser arrays for the excitation of Rydberg atoms, thereby enhancing spectral resolution under the power broadening. Compared with one laser, the laser array boosts EIT amplitude, narrowing the linewidth from 23.53 MHz to 12.66 MHz, making EIT-AT more distinguishable under identical fields and achieving an enhancement of the sensitivity of 77.96 nV/cm/Hz. These results indicate that laser arrays can optimize the sensitivity of measurement systems based on the Rydberg EIT effect.
We investigate the sensitivity of co-linear three-photon electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in 133Cs Rydberg atoms to radio frequency electric fields and compare against the conventional two-photon system. Specifically, we model the 4-level and 5-level atomic systems and compare how the transmission of the probe changes with different laser powers and RF field strengths. In this model, we define a sensitivity metric that relates to the current best experimental implementation and assumes photon shot noise limited detection. We find that the three-photon system boasts much narrower linewidths compared to the conventional two-photon EIT. These narrow line features, however, do not align with the regions of the best sensitivity. In addition to this, we calculate the expected sensitivity for the two-photon Rydberg sensor and find that the best achievable sensitivity is over an order of magnitude better than the current measured values of 5 μVm−1Hz−1/2. However, by accounting for additional noise sources in the experiment and the quantum efficiency of the photo-detectors, the values are in good agreement.
Abstract A scheme for measuring microwave (MW) electric (E) fields is proposed based on bichromatic electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in Rydberg atoms. A bichromatic control field drives the excited state transition, whose absorption shows three EIT windows. When a MW field drives the Rydberg transition, the EIT windows split and six transmission peaks appear. It is interesting to find that the peak-to-peak distance of transmission spectrum is sensitive to the MW field strength, which can be used to measure MW E-field. Simulation results show that the measurement accuracy could be increased by about 4 times, and the minimum detectable strength of the MW E-field may be improved by about 3 times compared with the common EIT scheme. After the Doppler averaging, the minimum detectable MW E-field strength is about 5 times larger than that without Doppler effect. Also, we investigate other effects on the sensitivity of the system.