Heterodyne Detection of Low-Frequency Fields via Rydberg EIT with Phase Demodulation

Abstract Recently, the rapid progress of quantum sensing research reveals that Rydberg atoms have great potential in becoming high-precision centimeter-scale antennas for low-frequency fields. In order to facilitate efficient and reliable detection of low-frequency fields via Rydberg atoms, we designed and implemented a heterodyne method based on the linear response to external signals under the condition of Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). Instead of relying on observing changes in the absorption of light by Rydberg atoms, our method focuses on the phase modulation effect on the probe laser induced by low-frequency fields via the Rydberg EIT mechanism and utilizes a special demodulation process to accurately retrieve signals including both amplitude and phase. The general principles of our method apply to both electric and magnetic fields, and it is even possible to realize a combination of both functionalities in the same apparatus. In particular, we experimentally demonstrate the full cycle of operations with respect to both cases. In measuring low-frequency electric fields, we discover that the Rydberg dipole–dipole interaction among atoms induces a linear superposition of Rydberg states with different angular momentum, generating a first-order response corresponding to the signature of the linear Stark effect. As Rydberg atoms have excellent coupling strengths with electric fields, our results indicate that our method can hopefully achieve high-precision performance for practical tasks in the future.