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Review of Scientific Instruments

High-dynamic-range microwave sensing using atomic Rabi resonances

Dong Hou, Chao Li, Fuyu Sun, Guangkun Guo, Ke Liu, Jie Liu, Xiaofeng Li, Peng Zhang, Shougang Zhang

Published Feb 1, 2023• 4 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Detection of the microwave (MW) field with high accuracy is very important in the physical science and engineering fields. Herein, an atomic Rabi resonance-based MW magnetic field sensor with a high-dynamic-range is reported, where α and β Rabi resonances are used to measure MW fields. In MW measurement experiments, the sensor successfully measured a magnetic field of about 10 nT at 9.2 GHz using the α Rabi resonance line on the cesium clock transition and continuously detected the MW magnetic field in the X-band over a high dynamic power range of >60 dB from the β Rabi resonance. Finally, the MW power frequency shift and power broadening are investigated to support more sensitive field measurements. The proposed MW detection method can be extended to cover a higher dynamic range and a wider frequency band by applying stronger excitations and exploring non-clock atomic transitions, respectively. In addition to MW magnetic field sensing, other potential application of the proposed method can be explored, including SI-traceable MW calibration and atomic communication.

DOI
10.1063/5.0130249

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Detection of the microwave (MW) field with high accuracy is very important in the physical science and engineering fields. Herein, an atomic Rabi resonance-based MW magnetic field sensor with a high-dynamic-range is reported, where α and β Rabi resonances are used to measure MW fields. In MW measurement experiments, the sensor successfully measured a magnetic field of about 10 nT at 9.2 GHz using the α Rabi resonance line on the cesium clock transition and continuously detected the MW magnetic field in the X-band over a high dynamic power range of >60 dB from the β Rabi resonance. Finally, the MW power frequency shift and power broadening are investigated to support more sensitive field measurements. The proposed MW detection method can be extended to cover a higher dynamic range and a wider frequency band by applying stronger excitations and exploring non-clock atomic transitions, respectively. In addition to MW magnetic field sensing, other potential application of the proposed method can be explored, including SI-traceable MW calibration and atomic communication.
Detection of microwave (MW) field with high accuracy is an important problem in the physical science and engineering area. In this work, we reported an atomic Rabi resonance-based MW magnetic field sensor and demonstrated its capability to continuously detect X-band MW magnetic field over a high dynamic power range of > 60 dB. The MW power frequency shift was carefully evaluated and canceled in order to support more sensitive filed measurement. A weak 9.2 GHz MW magnetic field lower than 10 nT was successful extracted from Rabi resonance line on the cesium clock transition. MW field and power detection capabilities of the presented method can be extended to cover a higher dynamic range and a wider frequency band by applying stronger excitation and exploring non-clock atomic transition. Our work enables potential applications including SI-traceable MW calibration and atomic communication.
In this letter, an atom-based approach for measuring the microwave (MW) cavity response (including cavity frequency and Q-factor) is presented, which utilizes a MW magnetic field detection technique based on atomic Rabi resonances. We first identify the Rabi resonances on seven π transitions in Cs atoms and demonstrate their uses in continuously frequency-tunable field detectors. With the atom-based field detectors, we then indicate the possibility of reconstructing the MW cavity response by measuring the MW frequency-dependent Rabi frequency (i.e., MW field strength) inside the cavity. To demonstrate this approach, we measured the response curves of a 9.2-GHz cavity and a cavity resonating at 8.3 GHz and 9.7 GHz using π transitions and σ transitions, respectively. We compared the results measured by our approach with those measured by Vector Networker Analyzer and obtained good agreement. From such atom-based, SI-traceable measurements, the MW cavity response can be linked directly to the Rabi frequency, which could be referred to an atomic clock.
We experimentally investigated continuously frequency-tunable microwave (MW) magnetic field detection based on Rabi resonance with a single cesium-rubidium hybrid vapor cell. The multispecies atomic systems, with their tunable abilities in transition frequencies, enabled this atomic sensing head to cover a broader detectable MW field scope compared to the use of a single alkali atom. Here, we demonstrated the simultaneous observation of atomic Rabi resonance signals with 85Rb, 87Rb, and 133Cs in the same vapor cell. Using an experimentally feasible static magnetic field (DC field) below 500 G, we realized a MW magnetic field strength detection with a bandwidth of 4.8 GHz around 8.1 GHz. The use of a hybrid cell system cell also enabled the detection of an identical MW field for different atomic species with the help of the DC field, allowing us to perform a perfect comparison for different applications that require the same electromagnetic environment. The results may be useful for the realization and application of many atomic detectors based on different physical principles.
We have recently presented a technique for measuring unknown microwave (MW) fields based on Rabi resonances induced by the interaction of atoms with a phase-modulated MW field. The single-peak feature of the measurement model makes the technique a valuable tool for simple and fast field measurement. Here we demonstrated a detailed investigation of Rabi resonance of Cs atoms inside a vapour cell. For illustration, we used the Rabi resonance-based field detection technique to determine the field strength inside an X-band cavity for applied power in the range of −21 to 20 dBm. The difference between the practical measurement and the simulation was approximately about 3% for an applied power of 20 dBm, and a higher accuracy could be expected for a larger power input.
Sensing of the microwave (MW) electric field with high accuracy and large power dynamic range has assisted in the implementation of metrology and communication. Here, an atom−based MW sensing system with a large linear power dynamic range for an electric field in the C band of 6.835 GHz is demonstrated in a vapor cell. The Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) spectra involving 53 D 5/2 state are employed to measure the medium intensity electric field by AC stark effect. On this basis, the heterodyne method, adding an auxiliary local oscillator (LO) MW field as a gain, is employed to measure the weak electric field. Finally, the strong electric field sensing is achieved by the atomic Rabi resonance when the coupling laser is turned off. As a result, the MW electric field measurements with a large linear power dynamic range of 101.6 dB are reached in a vapor cell by using multi−cooperative measurement methods. This work provides an effective approach for realizing the quantum MW sensing with high sensitivity and large power dynamic range.
In this work, we demonstrate a microwave magnetic field imaging technique based on Rabi resonance with a cesium atom vapor cell. Rabi resonance signals are generated when atoms interact with a phase-modulated microwave (MW) field and are detected by a photodiode and camera. A low noise, high quantum efficiency camera is used to capture a series of frames for different phase modulation frequencies. Rabi frequencies of each spatial point in the field can be measured by scanning the frames. Thus, the strength of the MW magnetic field distribution is obtained by combing the Rabi frequencies, measured with camera pixels in the range of the probe laser beam. The simple architecture of this imaging setup holds great potential for the construction of compact/miniature MW field sensors for material testing, field imaging of MW components, and biomedical imaging.