Atomic Vapor Cell with Integrated Electrodes for AC/DC Electric-Field Application

We present a glass-silicon rubidium vapor cell with built-in electrodes. The cell features eight ring electrodes that, along with the glass, form the body of the cell. The electrodes are made of conducting silicon, and they are fused to the glass parts via anodic bonding, creating a leak-proof seal. We use Rydberg-atom electromagnetically-induced transparency (EIT) and Stark effects to characterize the field created by applying a DC voltage to one of the electrodes. We also apply external microwave radiation to the cell and again use Rydberg-EIT to measure the resultant E-field strength inside the cell. The ring electrodes act as a polarizer for the microwave frequency, and we observe how the measured field is affected by microwave polarization. Given the robustness of the vapor cell, this glass-silicon anodic bonding method is a viable way of incorporating conducting surfaces into glass vapor cells, and it presents exciting opportunities for versatile cell electrode configurations in the future.