High-angular-momentum Rydberg states in a room-temperature vapor cell for DC electric-field sensing

Abstract

We prepare and analyze Rydberg states with orbital quantum numbers $\ell \le 6$ using three-optical-photon electromagnetically-induced transparency (EIT) and radio-frequency (RF) dressing, and employ the high-$\ell$ states in electric-field sensing. Rubidium-85 atoms in a room-temperature vapor cell are first promoted into the $25F_{5/2}$ state via Rydberg-EIT with three infrared laser beams. Two RF dressing fields then (near-)resonantly couple $25\ell$ Rydberg states with high $\ell$. The dependence of the RF-dressed Rydberg-state level structure on RF powers, RF and laser frequencies is characterized using EIT. Furthermore, we discuss the principles of DC-electric-field sensing using high-$\ell$ Rydberg states, and experimentally demonstrate the method using test electric fields of $\lesssim$~50~V/m induced via photo-illumination of the vapor-cell wall. We measure the highly nonlinear dependence of the DC-electric-field strength on the power of the photo-illumination laser. Numerical calculations, which reproduce our experimental observations well, elucidate the underlying physics. Our study is relevant to high-precision spectroscopy of high-$\ell$ Rydberg states, Rydberg-atom-based electric-field sensing, and plasma electric-field diagnostics.

12 pages, 5 figures, 1 table

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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Simultaneous multi-band radio-frequency detection using high-orbital-angular-momentum states in a Rydberg-atom receiver
• High angular momentum coupling for enhanced Rydberg-atom sensing in the VHF band
• An optical atomic clock using $4D_J$ states of rubidium
• Effects of inert background gases and photo-illumination on three-color electromagnetically induced transparency of rubidium vapor
• Determination of Quantum Defects and Core Polarizability of Atomic Cesium via Terahertz and Radio-Frequency Spectroscopy in Thermal Vapor
• Hyperfine structure and collisions in three-photon Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency
• Voltage and power-frequency electric field measurements with Rydberg-atom interferometry
• The Stark effect in molecular Rydberg states: Calculation of Rydberg-Stark manifolds of H${}_2$ and D${}_2$ including fine and hyperfine structures