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IEEE photonics journal

Image Transmission Utilizing Amplitude Modulation in Rydberg Atomic Antenna

Peng Zhang, Shaoxin Yuan, Mingyong Jing, Jinpeng Yuan, Hao Zhang, Linjie Zhang

Published Mar 4, 2024• 8 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Microwave electric field precision measurement based on Rydberg atomic quantum coherence effect has rapidly advanced in recent years, capitalizing on its high sensitivity, broad bandwidth, and traceability. The utilization of distinct Rydberg quantum states facilitates achieving an ultra-wideband measurement response across various microwave frequency bands, offering extensive applications in wireless communication, radar positioning, astronomical observation, and related domains. In this work, leveraging the Rydberg atomic antenna, we achieve simultaneous multi-frequency reception in the C-band (7.91 GHz, 5.106 GHz) and S-band (3.78 GHz) through amplitude-shift keying modulation. Furthermore, we encode RGB information from color image pixels onto 3 carrier frequencies in the C-band and S-band, while optimizing the multi-channel signal amplitude. The pixel information of the color image obtained by atomic demodulation realizes the high-fidelity digital color image transmission, with a root mean square error of 4.806, a mean square signal-to-noise ratio of 1.627, a peak signal-to-noise ratio of 29.998 and a structural similarity index of 0.9589. This study establishes an experimental groundwork for the utilization of Rydberg atomic antennas in ultra-wideband wireless communication and measurement.

DOI
10.1109/jphot.2024.3372640

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Microwave electric field precision measurement based on Rydberg atomic quantum coherence effect has rapidly advanced in recent years, capitalizing on its high sensitivity, broad bandwidth, and traceability. The utilization of distinct Rydberg quantum states facilitates achieving an ultra-wideband measurement response across various microwave frequency bands, offering extensive applications in wireless communication, radar positioning, astronomical observation, and related domains. In this work, leveraging the Rydberg atomic antenna, we achieve simultaneous multi-frequency reception in the C-band (7.91 GHz, 5.106 GHz) and S-band (3.78 GHz) through amplitude-shift keying modulation. Furthermore, we encode RGB information from color image pixels onto 3 carrier frequencies in the C-band and S-band, while optimizing the multi-channel signal amplitude. The pixel information of the color image obtained by atomic demodulation realizes the high-fidelity digital color image transmission, with a root mean square error of 4.806, a mean square signal-to-noise ratio of 1.627, a peak signal-to-noise ratio of 29.998 and a structural similarity index of 0.9589. This study establishes an experimental groundwork for the utilization of Rydberg atomic antennas in ultra-wideband wireless communication and measurement.
Abstract The Rydberg atomic receiver (RAR), characterized by its broad bandwidth, high sensitivity, traceability, and all-optical readout, has substantial potential in wireless communication. We implement the reception of amplitude-phase shift keying (APSK) modulated microwave signals using the RAR, where its self-demodulation capability, based on electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) and Autler–Townes (AT) splitting, preserves amplitude and phase information for decoding and data recovery. The relationship between amplitude and phase encoding orders in different APSK schemes and the bit error rate (BER) is explored. Relative to conventional amplitude-shift keying (ASK), APSK extends the phase dimension to increase data capacity proportional to the number of phase states. Additionally, APSK allows control of symbol durations, and the impact of varying symbol durations on data recovery is assessed through image transmission. This work utilizes the self-demodulation capabilities of the RAR to implement APSK within a quantum framework, thereby providing new insights for advancing quantum sensing and communication applications.
Rydberg-atom receivers have developed rapidly with increasing sensitivity. However, studies on their application in low-frequency electric fields remain limited. In this work, we demonstrate low-frequency communication using an electrode-embedded atom cell and a whip antenna without the need for a low-noise amplifier (LNA). Three modulations—binary phase-shift keying (BPSK), on–off keying (OOK), and two-frequency shift keying (2FSK)—were employed for communication using a Rydberg-atom receiver operating near 100 kHz. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the modulated low-frequency signal received by Rydberg atoms was measured at various emission voltages. Additionally, we demonstrated the in-phase and quadrature (IQ) constellation diagram, error vector magnitude (EVM), and eye diagram of the demodulated signal at different symbol rates. The EVM values were measured to be 8.8% at a symbol rate of 2 kbps, 9.4% at 4 kbps, and 13.7% at 8 kbps. The high-fidelity digital color image transmission achieved a peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) of 70 dB. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of a Rydberg-atom receiver for low-frequency communication applications.
We demonstrate an atom-based amplitude-modulation (AM) receiver for digital communication with a weak continuous frequency carrier using a Rydberg AC Stark effect in a vapor cell and achieve the operating carrier frequency continuously from 0.1 GHz to 5 GHz at a single Rydberg state. A strong local oscillator (LO) field E LO acts as a gain to shift the Rydberg level to a high sensitivity region, and a weak carrier field E Carr keeps the same frequency with the LO field. The digital baseband signals are encoded onto the E Carr using the amplitude modulation technique with the different modulation frequency. The response of Rydberg atom to the baseband signal is probed via a Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). The measured instantaneous bandwidth of the system is about 230 kHz. To demonstrate the performance of our system for an actual communication, we consider a color image as an example, the received image displays that the bit error rate (BER) is less than 5% when the maximum data transfer rate is about 238 kbps. Meanwhile, our system shows the weak carrier field of E Carr ≥ 13.52 μ V/cm can be used for the practical communication with BER less than 5%. Our works break the limitation that EIT-AT based atomic receivers only operate at the near resonant frequencies of the Rydberg transitions, making this emerging of quantum technology close to the practical application with high sensitivity and broad bandwidth.
Based on Autler-Townes splitting and AC Stark shifts, we present a Rydberg atom-based receiver for determining the amplitude modulation (AM) frequency among a wideband carrier range utilizing a cesium atomic vapor cell.To verify this approach, we measured the signal-to-noise ratio and the data capacity with a 10 kHz AM frequency in the carrier range from 2 GHz to 18 GHz.Without changing the lasers, the working band can be easily extended to a higher range by optimizing the feed antenna and experimental configurations.
We present a Rydberg atom-based receiver with amplitude modulation (AM) technique for the fifth-generation (5G) millimeter-wave wireless communication in a five-level85\bm {^{85}}85Rb atomic coherent system. The carrier microwave (C-MW) field at frequency of 24.12 GHz, corresponding to the 5G millimeter-wave wireless communication band, is encoded by AM technique, and then decoded by Rydberg atom-based receiver with the assistance of an auxiliary microwave (A-MW) field. An atomic response to the C-MW field linking to the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of decoded signal, which plays a prerequisite role in 5G millimeter-wave wireless communication with large data transfer capacity, is obtained by investigating the optimal powers of probe laser, coupling laser, and A-MW field. Also, an appropriate AM frequency of 10 kHz, which has an influence on the data transfer capacity, is acquired with 54 dB SNR of decoded signal. Under the abovementioned experimental conditions, the maximum data transfer capacity of 82.5 kbit/s is achieved when the C-MW field power tends to saturate. The bandwidth of Rydberg atom-based receiver is determined as 3.5 GHz, and the instantaneous bandwidth is approximately 106.3 kHz. As a result, 5G signals on three waveforms are transferred with high fidelity, frequency recovery rate, and time synchronization to verify the performance of this receiver for an actual communication. This scheme provides an effective approach for realizing 5G millimeter-wave wireless communication with wide bandwidth, large data transfer capacity, and high fidelity.
Up to now, the measurement of radio-frequency (RF) electric field achieved using the electromagnetically-induced transparency (EIT) of Rydberg atoms has proved to be of high-sensitivity and shows a potential to produce a promising atomic RF receiver at resonance between two chosen Rydberg states. In this paper, we study the extension of the feasibility of digital communication via this quantum-based antenna over a continuously tunable RF-carrier at off-resonance. Our experiment shows that the digital communication at a rate of 500 kbps can be performed reliably within a tunable bandwidth of 200 MHz near a 10.22 GHz carrier. Outside of this range, the bit error rate (BER) increases, rising to, for example, 15% at an RF-detuning of ±150 MHz. In the measurement, the time-varying RF field is retrieved by detecting the optical power of the probe laser at the center frequency of RF-induced symmetric or asymmetric Autler-Townes splitting in EIT. Prior to the digital test, we studied the RF-reception quality as a function of various parameters including the RF detuning and found that a choice of linear gain response to the RF-amplitude can suppress the signal distortion. The modulating signal can be decoded at speeds up to 500 kHz in the tunable bandwidth. Our test consolidates the physical basis for reliable communication and spectral sensing over a wider broadband RF-carrier, which paves a way for the concurrent multi-channel communications founded on the same pair of Rydberg states.