High-Sensitivity Electric Field Detection with Off-Resonant Rydberg Receivers in the HF Band

Rydberg electric field detectors using atomic vapor cells are projected to act as broadly tunable electric field sensors with the capability to perform with high sensitivity in a series of contexts, including polarization-sensitive, phase-sensitive, and angle-of-arrival electric field measurements. We present results on Rydberg atom-based electric field sensing in the band of 10-100 MHz, using a three-photon Rydberg excitation scheme [1] and a custom transverse electromagnetic (TEM) line waveguide in order to impart low-frequency rf fields near the cell. We detect electric fields using an off-resonant heterodyne detection method that frequency-modulates an AC Stark shift of the Rydberg state to achieve a sensitivity of 40.22 (+/- 2.48) uV/m/rHz at 10 MHz and 21.07 (+/- 1.02) uV/m/rHz at 100 MHz, comparing favorably to reported state-of-the-art sensitivity in the HF and VHF bands [2]. We discuss future work for this experimental design, including optical fiber integration of the vapor cell and field detection down to DC.

[1] Brown, R. C., Kayim, B., Viray, M. A., Perry, A. R., Sawyer, B. C., & Wyllie, R. (2023). Very-high-and ultrahigh-frequency electric-field detection using high angular momentum Rydberg states. Physical Review A, 107(5), 052605.

[2] Prajapati, N., Kunzler, J. W., Artusio-Glimpse, A. B., Rotunno, A., Berweger, S., Simons, M. T., ... & Younts, R. A. (2023). High angular momentum coupling for enhanced Rydberg-atom sensing in the VHF band. arXiv preprint arXiv:2310.01810.