Broadband Electrometry with a Rydberg-Dressed Strontium Clock

Atomic systems have been used as highly precise quantum sensors in a number of applications, including magnetometry and gravimetry. In particular, Rydberg atoms exhibit remarkable sensitivity to electric fields and can form the basis of atomic electrometers. Despite the widespread use of warm vapor-based electrometers due to their convenience, these systems are limited by Doppler effects and constraints on interrogation time. We present progress towards a strontium clock electrometer, combining the state of the art precision of strontium optical lattice clocks with the high electric field sensitivity of Rydberg atoms. Off-resonant Rydberg dressing of the clock state causes the atomic clock frequency to depend on environmental electric fields from DC to THz. This shift can then be read out in clock Ramsey spectroscopy with extended and variable interrogation time at optimal sensitivity, providing enhanced signal bandwidth control. Finally, this design paves the way for the generation and exploitation of metrologically useful entangled states for quantum enhanced sensing of environmental parameters.