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IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation

High-Sensitivity Rydberg Atom-Based Field Sensing Enhancement Using Miniaturized Resonator

Aojie Zhou, Yi Lin, Ruiqi Mao, Kai Yang, Zhenke Ding, Weipeng Wan, Yunqi Fu

Published Aug 13, 2025• 9 citations
Publisher

Abstract

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 be$10.39~\mu \text {V/cm}\sqrt {\text {Hz}}$at room temperature. With the addition of the miniaturized square spiral resonator, the sensitivity significantly improved to$2.60~\text {nV/cm}\sqrt {\text {Hz}}$, 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.

DOI
10.1109/tap.2025.3596373

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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 of0.011 λ0.011~\lambda 0.011 λat 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 atomic electric field sensors have attracted the attention of international researchers due to their powerful electric field measurement capabilities. Especially in the shortwave (SW) frequency band (3–30 MHz), using only millimeter-level sensors to receive SW signals is undoubtedly attractive. However, due to the extremely difficult excitation of the Rydberg atoms that resonate with the SW frequency, the sensitivity of the Rydberg atoms SW measurement is low. Here, we report that a method to improve the SW sensitivity by using an SW resonator, which is extremely small in electrical size ($0.0043\lambda \times 0.0035\lambda \times 0.007\lambda $), can achieve continuous resonant frequency coverage from 9.365 to 10.223 MHz and can increase the sensitivity of electric field measurement by a factor of 8633. In the state of far off-resonant, we have achieved a detectable field strength as low as$2.41~\mu $V/m with a sensitivity of$1.71~\mu V/mHzV/mHzV/mHz^{1/2}$using the heterodyne Rydberg atom-based mixer method, which realizes ultrahigh-sensitivity measurement of SWs. In addition, for the first time outside the laboratory, we directly received an amplitude-modulated broadcast signal with 880 km (the straight-line distance between Changsha and Baoji) at 9.81 MHz in the form of a subminiature resonator combined with a Rydberg field probe (RFP), which verified the powerful ability of this sensing scheme.
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.
In this article, we propose a new paradigm of room-temperature Rydberg atomic receiver for high frequency (HF) band sensing with high sensitivity. The proposed Rydberg atomic HF band receiver is implemented via a multilayered split-ring resonator (MSRR) and an atomic vapor cell. The MSRR is constructed by a five-layered printed circuit board within a deep-subwavelength size, providing a strongly enhanced electric field of the incident radio-frequency (RF) field. Using a quantum-optical readout of AC level shifts of field-sensitive atomic Rydberg states, the enhanced intra-cavity RF field significantly improves the sensitivity of the atomic receiver. In the measurement, we characterize the AC-stark shift in the frequency and power spectrum of the incident RF field. Furthermore, the sensitivity of the whole system is presented by utilizing the off-resonant Rydberg atomic heterodyne technique. In the absence of the MSRR, the sensitivity for an RF signal at 20.51 MHz was found to be 27.46 μV/cm √Hz. However, with the presence of our MSRR, the sensitivity significantly improved to 29.09 nV/cm √Hz, indicating a remarkable enhancement capacity of 944 times or 60 dB. This research holds great potential for high-sensitivity Rydberg atomic sensing, particularly in the HF band.
Highly sensitive detection of microwave (MW) fields throughout ultra-wideband spectrum is always an important subject in metrology, electromagnetism and cosmology. Rydberg atomic electrometers, which implement electric field measurements by detecting the disturbance of atomic energy levels, have the potentials to breakthrough the sensitivity and size limits of conventional sensors. However, due to the discrete structure of the energy levels, current measurements can only exhibit high sensitivity at the discontinuous frequencies which correspond to certain transitions. In this work, by implementing energy level modulation of Rydberg atom through Zeeman effect, we achieve continuous highly sensitive MW fields detection within 1-40 GHz ultra-wideband spectrum where the detection sensitivity is roundly below 65 nV cm-1 Hz-1/2, which is 2-3 orders of magnitude lower than that of the state-of-the-art continuous measurement architectures. The proposed method is expected to expand the working bandwidth from MHz to THz and therefore greatly accelerate the practical applications in the areas of radar and electronic reconnaissance. Detecting microwave fields across an ultra-wideband spectrum is crucial for advancements in metrology, electromagnetism, and cosmology. Here, the authors utilize Zeeman effect modulation of Rydberg atoms to achieve continuous, highly sensitive detection from 1-40 GHz, significantly enhancing sensitivity and potentially transforming radar and electronic reconnaissance applications.
Fields with frequencies below megahertz are challenging for Rydberg-atom-based measurements, due to the low-frequency electric field screening effect that is caused by the alkali-metal atoms adsorbed on the inner surface of the container. In this paper, we investigate on electric fields measurements in the ULF, VLF and LF bands in a Cs vapor cell with built-in parallel electrodes. With optimization of the applied DC field, we achieve high-sensitive detection of the electric field at frequencies of 1kHz, 10kHz and 100kHz based on Rydberg-atom sensor, with the minimum electric field strength down to 18.0μV/cm, 6.9μV/cm and 3.0μV/cm, respectively. The corresponding sensitivity is 5.7 μV/cm/{\sqrt{Hz}}, 2.2μV/cm/{\sqrt{Hz}} and 0.95μV/cm/{\sqrt{Hz}} for ULF, VLF and LF fields, which is better than 1-cm dipole antenna. Besides, the linear dynamic range of Rydberg-atom sensor is over 50 dB. This work presents the potential to enable more applications that utilize atomic sensing technology in ULF, VLF and LF fields.
Abstract Rydberg atom-based sensors using the atomic heterodyne technique demonstrate prominent performance on sensing sensitivity and thus have significant potential for radar, electronic reconnaissance, and communication applications. Here, we propose a local oscillator (LO) embedded field enhancement resonator to improve the sensitivity and integration of Rydberg atomic heterodyne sensors. In this approach, a vapor cell filled with cesium atoms is placed into the resonance structure for electric (E) field measurements. By integrating parallel-plate waveguide (PPWG) antennas and the resonator, the LO signal can be directly guided to the resonator using coaxial cable instead of the use of external antennas radiating through free space, allowing for a more flexible and practical Rydberg atom-based heterodyne technique. Based on the off-resonant Rydberg atomic heterodyne approach, for a radio frequency (RF) signal at 638 MHz, it is found that the sensitivity is 43 μ V/cm Hz\sqrt{\text{Hz}}Hz​ Hz in the absence of the resonator, while in the presence of our resonator, the sensitivity is down to 854.36 nV/cm Hz\sqrt{\text{Hz}}Hz​ Hz , indicating 50 times or 34 dB improvement capacity of the proposed resonator. This type of enhancement resonator is expected to benefit Rydberg atomic heterodyne applications in practical environments.