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Satellite radio detection via dual-microwave Rydberg spectroscopy

Joshua C. Hill, Peter K. Elgee, Kermit-James E. LeBlanc, Gabriel D. Ko, Paul D. Kunz, Kevin C. Cox, David H. Meyer

Published Jan 1, 2024• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We present a resonant Rydberg electric field s ensor o perating i n t he UHF band using a dual-optical-dual-microwave spectroscopy scheme. We measure Sirius XM satellite radio, and compare the sensitivity to other contemporary implementations of the technology.
DOI
10.1364/cleo_at.2024.jw2a.93

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Rydberg electric field sensors exploit the large number of Rydberg resonances to provide sensitivity over a broad range of the electromagnetic spectrum. However, due to the difficulty of accessing resonant Rydberg states at ultra-high frequency (UHF) and below, ubiquitous bands in the world's current wireless communications infrastructure, they currently fall, short in sensitivity in this range. We present a resonant Rydberg electric field sensor operating in the UHF band using a dual-optical dual-microwave spectroscopy scheme. Adding an additional microwave photon allows us to access transitions between Rydberg states with higher angular momentum (L=3→4), which have lower resonant frequencies than transitions typically used in Rydberg sensors. We discuss the applicability of this type of sensor across the UHF band and below and measure the resonant sensitivity of our system at 2.3 GHz to be 70(5) μV m−1 Hz−1∕2, 57 times better than the measured sensitivity with a far off-resonant probing scheme at this frequency. We also show the effectiveness of this sensing scheme by measuring Sirius XM satellite radio (2.320–2.345 GHz) received outside the laboratory and rebroadcast onto the atoms.
Rydberg electric field sensors exploit the structured multitude of electronic transitions between Rydberg atomic states. In this way, they can detect electric fields with frequencies spanning DC to THz. However, difficulty accessing resonant transitions at ultra-high frequencies (UHF, 0.3-30 GHz) and below hinders their applicability within this ubiquitous band of the world’s wireless communications infrastructure. We present a Rydberg electric field sensor operating in the UHF band using a resonant dual-optical dual-microwave spectroscopy scheme. This enables access to transitions with lower resonant frequencies, and higher angular momentum (L = 3→4), than those typically used in Rydberg sensors. We measure the resonant sensitivity of our system at 2.3 GHz to be 70(5) µVm−1Hz−1/2, 50 times better than the measured sensitivity with a far off-resonant probing scheme at this frequency. Moreover, we demonstrate the effectiveness of this scheme by measuring Sirius XM satellite radio (2.320 - 2.345 GHz) received outside the laboratory and rebroadcast onto the atoms.
Due to the small interaction region between Rydberg atoms and the microwave field, it is difficult to detect weak satellite signals using free-space-coupled atomic receivers. In this work, we introduce a cavity-coupled Rydberg atomic receiver to enhance the microwave field and combine it with a passive antenna to detect C-band satellite signals. Using microwave-atom enhanced coupling, the minimum detectable power of incident microwave is reduced to -128 dBm, and the corresponding sensitivity sensing by atoms is estimated as 21 nV/cm/Hz1/2at a frequency of 3.80 GHz. Furthermore, we also show the effectiveness of this scheme by capturing the beacon signal from a geostationary satellite, without the need for low-noise amplifiers often used in conventional detection. Besides, modulated satellite signals are received with a signal-to-noise ratio of 8 dB with a measurement bandwidth of 10 Hz. Our results demonstrate an advancement in facilitating satellite communications using cavity-coupled Rydberg-atom receivers.
Microwave sensing offers important applications in areas such as data communication and remote sensing. It has thus received much attention from academia, industry, and governments. Atomic wireless sensing uses the strong response of the large electric dipole moment of a Rydberg atom in response to an external field to achieve precise measurement of a radio frequency (RF) signal. This method offers advantages over traditional wireless sensing including ultrawide energy level transitions, which makes it responsive to RF electric fields over a wide bandwidth. Here, we briefly review the progress of electric field measurement based on Rydberg atoms. We discuss the properties of Rydberg atoms, measurement using Rydberg atoms, experimental progress in electric field measurement of different bands, and different methods for detecting electric fields (such as atomic superheterodyne, machine learning, and critically enhanced measurement). The development of Rydberg atomic measurement focuses on the advantages of Rydberg atomic sensing, especially when compared to conventional microwave receivers. This work is of major significance to developing Rydberg-based measurements in astronomy, remote sensing, and other fields.
We demonstrate the use of multiple atomic-level Rydberg-atom schemes for continuous frequency detection of radio-frequency (RF) fields. Resonant detection of RF fields by electromagnetically induced transparency and Autler-Townes (AT) splitting in Rydberg atoms is typically limited to frequencies within the narrow bandwidth of a Rydberg transition. By applying a second field resonant with an adjacent Rydberg transition, far-detuned fields can be detected through a two-photon resonance AT splitting. This two-photon AT splitting method is several orders of magnitude more sensitive than off-resonant detection using the Stark shift. We present the results of various experimental configurations and a theoretical analysis to illustrate the effectiveness of this multiple level scheme. These results show that this approach allows for the detection of frequencies in a continuous band between resonances with adjacent Rydberg states.