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Scientific Reports

Multi-parameter microwave quantum sensing with a single atomic probe

Zhigang Feng, Xiaochi Liu, Zhenfei Song, Jifeng Qu

Published Feb 13, 2025• 6 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We demonstrate a multi-parameter sensing scheme for free space microwave electric and magnetic fields in single vapor cell based on the atom-based microwave detection techniques. A weak probe laser though a rubidium vapor cell first acts as magnetic probe to measure the microwave magnetic field via atomic Rabi resonance of the ground state hyperfine transition. When another strong coupling laser is subsequently counter-propagated and overlapped with the probe laser in the same atomic vapor cell, the probe laser is then used as electric probe to measure microwave electric field by off-resonant microwave dressed Rydberg Autler-Townes splitting. We achieve measurement of microwave electric and magnetic fields without any complicated tuning methods at the clock frequency of 6.835 GHz. Based on the inherent relationship between microwave electric and magnetic fields, and their good linear response characteristics in respective suitable power ranges, the equivalent microwave magnetic fields are derived from linear fitting of the measured electric fields, which are in agreement with the calibrated experimental results within the same power range. This work provides an effective approach for extending the power dynamic range of atom-based microwave quantum sensors.

DOI
10.1038/s41598-025-89697-4

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We demonstrate a multi-parameter sensing scheme for free space microwave electric and magnetic fields in single vapor cell based on the atom-based microwave detection techniques. A weak probe laser though a rubidium vapor cell first acts as magnetic probe to measure the microwave magnetic field via atomic Rabi resonance of the ground state hyperfine transition. When another strong coupling laser is subsequently counter-propagated and overlapped with the probe laser in the same atomic vapor cell, the probe laser is then used as electric probe to measure microwave electric field by off-resonant microwave dressed Rydberg Autler-Townes splitting. We achieve measurement of microwave electric and magnetic fields without any complicated tuning methods at the clock frequency of 6.835 GHz. Based on the inherent relationship between microwave electric and magnetic fields, and their good linear response characteristics in respective suitable power ranges, the equivalent microwave magnetic fields are derived from linear fitting of the measured electric fields, which are in agreement with the calibrated experimental results within the same power range. This work provides an effective approach for extending the power dynamic range of atom-based microwave quantum sensors.
We present an atom-based approach for determining microwave electric and magnetic fields by using a single rubidium vapor cell in a microwave waveguide. For a 87Rb cascade three-level system employed in our experiment, a weak probe laser driving the lower transition, 5S1/2→5P3/2, is first used to measure the microwave magnetic field based on the atomic Rabi resonance. When a counter-propagating strong coupling laser is subsequently turned on to drive the Rydberg transition, 5P3/2→67D5/2, the same probe laser is then used as a Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) probe to measure the microwave electric field by investigating the resonant microwave dressed Autler-Townes splitting (ATS). By tuning the hyperfine transition frequency of the ground state using an experimentally feasible static magnetic field, we first achieved a measurement of the microwave electric and magnetic field strength at the same microwave frequency of 6.916 GHz. Based on the ideal relationship between the electric and magnetic field components, we obtained the equivalent microwave magnetic fields by fitting the inversion to the measured microwave electric fields, which demonstrated that the results were in agreement with the experimental measurement of the microwave magnetic fields in the same microwave power range. This study provides new experimental evidence for quantum-based microwave measurements of electric and magnetic fields by a single sensor in the same system.
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.
Atoms form the basis of precise measurement for many quantities (time, acceleration, rotation, magnetic field, etc.). Measurements of microwave frequency electric fields by traditional methods (i.e. engineered antennas) have limited sensitivity and can be difficult to calibrate properly. Highly-excited (Rydberg) neutral atoms have very large electric-dipole moments and many dipole allowed transitions in the range of 1 - 500 GHz. It is possible to sensitively probe the electric field in this range using the combination of two quantum interference phenomena: electromagnetically induced transparency and the Autler-Townes effect. This technique allows for very sensitive field amplitude, polarization, and sub-wavelength imaging measurements. These quantities can be extracted by measuring properties of a probe laser beam as it passes through a warm rubidium vapor cell. Thus far, Rydberg microwave electrometry has relied upon the absorption of the probe laser. We report on our use of polarization rotation, which corresponds to the real part of the susceptibility, for measuring the properties of microwave frequency electric fields. Our simulations show that when a magnetic field is present and directed along the optical propagation direction a polarization rotation signal exists and can be used for microwave electrometry. One central advantage in using the polarization rotation signal rather than the absorption signal is that common mode laser noise is naturally eliminated leading to a potentially dramatic increase in signal-to-noise ratio.
Most studies on Rydberg atom-based microwave electric field measurement are achieved by using a single atomic vapor cell. In this work, we design an 1×4 uniform linear array of vapor cells by splitting the probe laser and coupling laser, and achieve simultaneous measurement of the microwave electric fields at the center of four vapor cells using Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency method. At the frequency of the microwave electric field with about 6.92GHz, the measured AT splitting at four different spatial locations is linearly related to the square root of power of the microwave electric field. The microwave measurement for different spatial location allows the Rydberg atoms to meet the need of communications and radar better.
We provide the simultaneous traceable measurements of microwave electric fields at two different frequencies by the electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) and Autler–Townes (AT) splitting. A static magnetic field working together with a linearly polarized probe and coupling light prepares Rydberg atoms in Zeeman sublevels with maximal |mJ| in an atomic vapor cell. Using the EIT-AT splitting of these two maximal |mJ| states, the microwave electric fields at two different frequencies are simultaneously measured, in which their frequency difference can be adjustable within the linear range of magnetic field-induced level shifts. The proposed method provides a promising prospect for calibrating multiple microwave frequencies simultaneously in the future.
We have shown that Rydberg states can be used for high-sensitivity, absolute sensing of microwave (MW) electric fields. We achieved a sensitivity of 3 μVcm-1Hz-1/2 for two read-out strategies. Depending on the spectral resolution of the read-out, either the MW induced transmission line frequency splitting, the Autler-Townes regime, or a change in the on-resonant absorption, the amplitude regime, can be used to determine the MW electric field. Results using a Mach-Zehnder interferometer and frequency modulated spectroscopy both achieve similar photon shot noise limited sensitivity. In addition, we have also explored amplitude modulation and the displacement of a probe laser beam due to index of refraction changes in a prism shaped vapor cell. These latter methods were not able to achieve photon shot noise limited performance. Fundamental limits to the sensitivity of the Rydberg atom-based MW electric field sensing have been addressed, but it is important to clarify the differences between noise in different parts or subsystems of the sensor. Shot noise in the probe laser usually dominates the projection noise of the atoms participating in the measurement of the MW electric field because of the desire to operate at low effective Rydberg atom densities in order to avoid collisional dephasing and ionization.