Electrically-Small Rydberg Sensor for Three-Dimensional Determination of rf k-Vectors
| Title: | Electrically-Small Rydberg Sensor for Three-Dimensional Determination of rf k-Vectors |
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| Authors: | Elgee, Peter K., Cox, Kevin C., Hill, Joshua C., Kunz, Paul D., Meyer, David H. |
| Publication Year: | 2025 |
| Collection: | Physics (Other) Quantum Physics |
| Subject Terms: | Physics - Atomic Physics, Quantum Physics |
| More Details: | We present an electrically-small Rydberg atom electric field sensor with the ability to extract the three-dimensional $k$-vector of an elliptically polarized radio frequency (rf) field. In most mediums, the $k$-vector (or wave vector) provides the direction of propagation of an electromagnetic wave. Our method uses a field vector measurement at a single point in space and is thus compatible with a sensor volume that is arbitrarily small compared to the carrier wavelength. We measure the $k$-vector of a circularly polarized signal field with average absolute errors in the polar and azimuthal angles of $33~\text{mrad}$ and $43~\text{mrad}$ respectively, and statistical noise of $1.3~\text{mrad}/\sqrt{\text{Hz}}$ and $1.5~\text{mrad}/\sqrt{\text{Hz}}$. Additionally, we characterize the performance of the sensor as a function of the ellipticity of the input field and the size of the sensing region. We find that the sensor works over a broad range of ellipticities and validate that an electrically-small sensing region is optimal. Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures |
| Document Type: | Working Paper |
| Access URL: | http://arxiv.org/abs/2503.04670 |
| Accession Number: | edsarx.2503.04670 |
| Database: | arXiv |
| Description not available. |