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Optical and Quantum Sensing and Precision Metrology II

Rydberg atomic receiver for AM, FM, and phase shift keying data transmission

He Wang, Carl Boone, Gebriel H. Iyanu

Published Mar 19, 2025• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Recently, Rydberg atoms have attracted increasing interests for applications as electric field sensors, RF spectrometers, and microwave receivers. In this paper, we present experimental studies of a cesium (Cs) Rydberg atomic microwave receiver and its temporal response characteristics to amplitude modulation (AM), frequency modulation (FM), and binary phase shift keying (BPSK) modulation. The receiver is associated with the Cs Rydberg transitions of n2D5/2 – (n+1)2P3/2 at various frequencies, which is generated by double-resonance laser excitations in a room temperature Cs vapor cell. We use the Electromagnetically Induced Transparency (EIT) and Autler-Townes (AT) effects to directly receive modulated microwave signals and recover the data encoded in the carriers. We demonstrated AM and FM digital data transmissions at data rates up to 1 Mbps and BPSK modulation and demodulation with a clock frequency of 250 kHz. Modulation depths up to 90% are experimentally observed and studied as a function of the modulation clock frequency. We also perform modeling to show that Cs atoms have accessible Rydberg transitions at frequencies covering the range from below GHz to THz for wideband microwave receiver applications across RF systems.

DOI
10.1117/12.3053362

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Recently, Rydberg atoms have attracted increasing interests for applications as electric field sensors, RF spectrometers, and microwave receivers. In this paper, we present experimental studies of a cesium (Cs) Rydberg atomic microwave receiver and its temporal response characteristics to amplitude modulation (AM), frequency modulation (FM), and binary phase shift keying (BPSK) modulation. The receiver is associated with the Cs Rydberg transitions of n2D5/2 – (n+1)2P3/2 at various frequencies, which is generated by double-resonance laser excitations in a room temperature Cs vapor cell. We use the Electromagnetically Induced Transparency (EIT) and Autler-Townes (AT) effects to directly receive modulated microwave signals and recover the data encoded in the carriers. We demonstrated AM and FM digital data transmissions at data rates up to 1 Mbps and BPSK modulation and demodulation with a clock frequency of 250 kHz. Modulation depths up to 90% are experimentally observed and studied as a function of the modulation clock frequency. We also perform modeling to show that Cs atoms have accessible Rydberg transitions at frequencies covering the range from below GHz to THz for wideband microwave receiver applications across RF systems.
In this paper, we report an atomic oscillator in Ku band and its application for electric field (E-field) sensing with Cs Rydberg atoms in a room-temperature vapor cell. The oscillator is associated with the Cs Rydberg transition of 362D5/2– 372P3/2at 16.316 GHz which is generated with a two-laser double-resonance excitation. We characterized the energetics and the dipole moment of the Rydberg transition and used Electromagnetically Induced Transparency (EIT) and Autler-Townes (AT) effects for detecting continuous and amplitude/frequency modulated microwave E-fields. To enhance the oscillator’s response to weak signals, a superheterodyne technique was incorporated into the Rydberg oscillator system, which resulted in an improvement in the oscillator’s sensitivity by 100 times. Furthermore, our modeling shows that the Cs Rydberg atomic oscillator can be tuned to broad frequency ranges from MHz to THz for various RF applications.
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.
The highly-excited Rydberg states are with a unique property of radio-frequency (RF) resonance, and Rydberg atoms at room temperature are promising for developing a broadband RF electric field sensor and relevant metrology standards. In this paper, the working mechanism of an atomic amplitude-modulation(AM) radio receiver is investigated in detail, and various factors affecting the communication quality are discussed. The modulation RF signal can be directly retrieved by measuring the transmission of a probe laser at resonance of rubidium D2 transition using a fast photo-diode detector, without any conventional demodulation process. Various communication experiments are tested at a 10.22 GHz carrier, and a modulation bandwidth of 1 MHz and an acceptable data transfer rate of about 1 Mbps have been achieved using current detection techniques. Owing to a potential high sensitivity and ultra-broadband capability of free-space RF field sensing, the quantum receiver has great significance compared with conventional electronics-based receivers, including but not limited to a weak signal, long-distance, and broadband communication in free space or via a fiber link.
An atom-based sensor is used to retrieve baseband signals modulated onto a microwave carrier. The 60 S 1/2 level of cesium atoms in a vapor cell is optically probed via electromagnetically induced transparency. A 16.98-GHz carrier is resonant with the 60 S 1/2 → 60 P 1/2 transition, resulting in an Autler–Townes (AT) splitting. Amplitude modulation (AM) results in a variation of the AT splitting, which is processed to retrieve the AM baseband signals. The optically retrieved signal has a fidelity of >95%. We demonstrate a baseband bandwidth of the receiver of about 60 kHz and a dynamic range of about 30 dB.
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.
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.