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IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters

A Compact Tunable Enhancement Resonator for Rydberg Atomic Receiver

Yuxiao Li, Yi Lin, Zhenke Ding, Kai Yang, Ruibing Ran, Zhiqian Wan, Yunqi Fu

Published Dec 16, 2024• 11 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Rydberg atomic receivers (RARs) have emerged in the field of quantum precision measurement due to high sensitivity and self-calibration. In this letter, we demonstrate a compact tunable enhancement resonator (CTER) for enhancing the detective sensitivity of the RAR. The resonator consists of two printed circuit board (PCB) substrates and a copper tuning column, which achieves resonant frequency variation by continuously sliding the copper tuning column. During the measurement, we have achieved electric field enhancement in the 210 MHz to 308.6 MHz band with a relative bandwidth of 38$\%$and the enhancement factor ranging from 38 dB to 47 dB. By adjusting the height of the CTER, different sizes of atomic vapor cells can be accommodated while maintaining good enhancement. In theoff-resonant region, the detective sensitivity of the RAR with and without CTER at 223.7 MHz were measured at 179.37 nV$\cdot {\text{cm}}^{-1}$$ \cdot {\text{Hz}}^{-1/2}$and 40.16$\mu$V$\cdot$$\text{cm}^{-1}$$ \cdot {\text{Hz}}^{-1/2}$by utilizing the Rydberg atomic heterodyne technique, respectively. Furthermore, the CTER displays a compact electrical size, approximately 3.37× 10$^{-5}$$\lambda ^{3}$in comparison to other resonators, which facilitates the miniaturization and integration of the RAR. Its remarkable resonance characteristics and broadband tuning capability provide support for achieving high-sensitivity and broadband quantum microwave measurements.

DOI
10.1109/lawp.2024.3517598

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Rydberg atomic receivers (RARs) have emerged in the field of quantum precision measurement due to high sensitivity and self-calibration. In this letter, we demonstrate a compact tunable enhancement resonator (CTER) for enhancing the detective sensitivity of the RAR. The resonator consists of two printed circuit board (PCB) substrates and a copper tuning column, which achieves resonant frequency variation by continuously sliding the copper tuning column. During the measurement, we have achieved electric field enhancement in the 210 MHz to 308.6 MHz band with a relative bandwidth of 38%\%%and the enhancement factor ranging from 38 dB to 47 dB. By adjusting the height of the CTER, different sizes of atomic vapor cells can be accommodated while maintaining good enhancement. In theoff-resonant region, the detective sensitivity of the RAR with and without CTER at 223.7 MHz were measured at 179.37 nV\cdot {\text{cm}}^{-1}$$ \cdot {\text{Hz}}^{-1/2}and 40.16μ\muμV\cdot$$\text{cm}^{-1}$$ \cdot {\text{Hz}}^{-1/2}by utilizing the Rydberg atomic heterodyne technique, respectively. Furthermore, the CTER displays a compact electrical size, approximately 3.37× 10^{-5}$$\lambda ^{3}in comparison to other resonators, which facilitates the miniaturization and integration of the RAR. Its remarkable resonance characteristics and broadband tuning capability provide support for achieving high-sensitivity and broadband quantum microwave measurements.
Highly sensitive detection of VHF band fields poses a challenge for Rydberg atomic sensing since resonant detection requires exciting atoms to extremely high energy states. We demonstrate a PCB-based electrically tunable resonator (PETR) for enhancing the sensing sensitivity of the Rydberg atomic sensor to VHF band fields. In this approach, the sub-wavelength PETR is made of PCB, which offers improved mechanical strength and miniaturization. During the measurements, a parallel-plate waveguide is utilized as the radio frequency (RF) fields launcher to eliminate unintentional scattering from the surroundings. By adjusting the bias voltage applied to the tuning varactor of the PETR, we can continuously tune the resonant frequencies from 187 MHz to 293.6 MHz, corresponding to a relative bandwidth of 44%. There is a fluctuation in the enhancement factor of the PETR, ranging from 17.6 to 60.1, which is primarily caused by misalignment between the laser beam and the resonant area. Furthermore, employing the off-resonant Rydberg atomic heterodyne technique, we investigated the sensitivity of the system. In the absence of the PETR, the sensitivity for a RF signal at 250.5 MHz was found to be 24.36 μV/cm√Hz. However, with the presence of our PETR, the sensitivity significantly improved to 433.26 nV/cm√Hz, indicating a remarkable enhancement capacity of 56.23 times or 35 dB. This enhancement resonator holds great potential for improving Rydberg atomic sensing, particularly in the VHF band.
A tunable electric field enhancement structure that can be used for quantum microwave measurement is proposed in this paper. The structure consists of PCB and a copper connecting column, which facilitates integration and miniaturization. It achieves continuous electric field enhancement in the 215.6 MHz-319.6 MHz band with a relative bandwidth of 39% and the enhancement factor ranging from 316.9 (50.02 dB) to 419.8 (52.57 dB) by continuously sliding copper connecting column. Not only does it effectively improve the sensitivity of quantum microwave measurement, but it also further expands the application range of electric field enhancement structures.
Resonant structures provide a promising approach to significantly enhance the sensing sensitivity of Rydberg atomic receivers. However, conventional resonators predominantly operate at fixed frequencies, thereby constraining the intrinsic broadband response capabilities of Rydberg atoms. This study introduces a broadband frequency reconfigurable resonator (BFRR) engineered to augment sensitivity while preserving the broadband characteristics of atomic receivers. By employing varactor diodes to dynamically adjust equivalent capacitance and PIN diodes to selectively activate distinct inductive branches, the BFRR achieves continuous electronic tuning from 231 to 586 MHz, corresponding to a relative bandwidth of 86.9%. Inoff-resonant atomic heterodyne configurations, the integration of the BFRR enhances sensitivity by nearly two orders of magnitude across the tuning range, attaining a sensitivity of 30.4 (nV/cm)/Hz\sqrt{\text {H}z}Hz​at 564.2 MHz. This advancement significantly improves both the sensitivity and broadband adaptability of Rydberg atomic receivers, thereby offering essential support for progress in quantum electrometry.
High-sensitivity amplitude and frequency detection of microwave electric fields is of significant importance in various fields, including communications, microwave quantum technology, aerospace, medicine, and meteorology. Rydberg atom-based sensors promise traceable standards and high sensitivity for detecting weak electric fields and enhancing sensing sensitivity, mainly by using superheterodyne technology and resonant structures. Detecting high-frequency (HF) band fields with high sensitivity using Rydberg atom sensors is a significant challenge due to the requirement of exciting atoms to extremely high energy states for resonant detection. We demonstrate the off-resonant Rydberg atomic superheterodyne architecture with additional resonators for greatly enhancing the sensing sensitivity to HF band fields. In this approach, we propose a miniaturized square spiral resonator with an electrical size of$0.011~\lambda $at 15.54 MHz. To reduce the electric-field-screening effect of the adsorption of alkali metal atoms, we use a monocrystalline sapphire cesium (Cs) vapor cell. By utilizing the off-resonant alternating current (ac) Stark effect, the initial sensitivity of the Rydberg atom sensor without the resonator is measured to be10.39 μV/cmHz10.39~\mu \text {V/cm}\sqrt {\text {Hz}}10.39 μV/cmHz​at room temperature. With the addition of the miniaturized square spiral resonator, the sensitivity significantly improved to2.60 nV/cmHz2.60~\text {nV/cm}\sqrt {\text {Hz}}2.60 nV/cmHz​, which has been inaccessible so far with atomic sensors. Here, we provide an enhancement of 72 dB, which is three orders of magnitude improvement in sensitivity than when the resonator is not used. This enhancement resonator extends Rydberg atomic high-sensitivity sensing to the HF band and shows great potential, especially in shortwave radio reception.
Rydberg atom-based microwave measurement technology has gained attention for its self-calibration, high sensitivity, and wide frequency response. To enhance sensitivity, resonators are typically employed for localized electric field enhancement. With the introduction of AC/DC Stark tuning and laser scanning techniques, resonator designs have been developed to support extended frequency coverage. However, these require sequential scanning or switching to cover the target range, limiting their applicability in passband-wide, multi-frequency detection. To address this issue, this paper proposes a cascaded cavity resonator (CCR) that enables continuous field enhancement within the target S-band range. A theoretical model was established and the key dimensions were optimized via COMSOL-based simulation of the vapor cell's spatial field distribution. Subsequently, validation through Autler-Townes (AT) effect and heterodyne technology confirms that the proposed structure enhances sensitivity by$ \geq$27.2 dB within the 2.781-3.008 GHz bandwidth. This work supports systematic exploration of Rydberg-atom response across a broader spectral range and enables multi-frequency detection without stepwise tuning.
Rydberg atom-based microwave electric field sensing has attracted growing interest owing to its inherent advantages, such as absolute calibration, wideband operability, and compatibility with room-temperature devices. A critical bottleneck that limits sensitivity is the inefficient coupling between the Rydberg atoms and the incident microwave field, particularly when detecting weak signals propagating in free space. Here we propose and experimentally validate a scheme that integrates a horn antenna with a resonant microwave cavity to significantly improve this coupling for free-space signal reception in the S-band. Using a two-photon excitation scheme in a cesium vapor cell, we systematically characterize the sensing performance under three configurations: a bare cell, direct cavity injection, and a cavity coupled to a horn antenna that captures free-space microwave signals over a 1 m distance. In the antenna-coupled cavity configuration, we achieve an optimal sensitivity of 2.33 nV/cm/Hz\sqrt{\text{Hz}}Hz​ at the receiving antenna, which corresponds to an enhancement of approximately 17.9 dB compared to the optimized bare vapor cell configuration. Our findings offer a practical and effective route to boost the sensitivity of Rydberg atomic sensors, facilitating their adoption in real-world microwave metrology and wireless communication applications where weak free-space electric fields must be reliably measured.