Angle-of-arrival detection of radio-frequency waves via Rydberg atom fluorescence imaging of standing waves in a glass vapor cell

Abstract

We present a method for measuring the angle-of-arrival of 40 GHz radio-frequency (RF) radiation by mapping the standing waves generated in a rectangular glass vapor cell. These standing waves have regular and well-defined structure from which we can infer the angle and sign of the wavevector of the RF field. We map the field using spatially resolved light sheet spectroscopy of Rydberg states of rubidium atoms in the cell. Unlike traditional phased arrays, this detection scheme is compact and low-complexity, has an active area of nearly 4$\pi$ steradians, and is sensitive to all RF polarizations. For in-plane measurements ($\varphi =0$), we demonstrate quantitative angle-of-arrival measurements with an uncertainty on the order of one degree in an 11~s measurement, and for out-of-plane measurements (arbitrary $\theta$,$\varphi$), we demonstrate angle-of-arrival detection with uncertainty on the order of several degrees.

References in corpus (4)

• Sub-Wavelength Imaging and Field Mapping via EIT and Autler-Townes Splitting In Rydberg Atoms
• Determining the Angle-of-Arrival of an Radio-Frequency Source with a Rydberg Atom-Based Sensor
• Imaging of induced surface charge distribution effects in glass vapor cells used for Rydberg atom-based sensors
• Electrically-Small Rydberg Sensor for Three-Dimensional Determination of rf k-Vectors

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Static dc electric field orientation effects on two-photon Rydberg EIT
• Background-free calibrated electric-field imaging with Rydberg-state fluorescence and Autler-Townes splitting