Improvement of response bandwidth and sensitivity of Rydberg receiver using multi-channel excitations

Abstract

We investigate the response bandwidth of a superheterodyne Rydberg receiver at a room-temperature vapor cell, and present an architecture of multi-channel lasers excitation to increase the response bandwidth and keep sensitivity, simultaneously. Two microwave fields, denoted as a local oscillator (LO) \(E_{\text{LO}}\) and a signal field \(E_{\text{SIG}}\), couple two Rydberg states transition of \(|52D_{5/2}\rangle \to |53P_{3/2}\rangle \). In the presence of the LO field, the frequency difference between two fields can be read out as an intermediate frequency (IF) signal using Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) spectroscopy. The bandwidth of the Rydberg receiver is obtained by measuring the output power of IF signal versus the frequency difference between two fields. The bandwidth dependence on the Rabi frequency of excitation lasers is presented, which shows the bandwidth decrease with the probe Rabi frequency, while it is quadratic dependence on the coupling Rabi frequency. Meanwhile, we investigate the effect of probe laser waist on the bandwidth, showing that the bandwidth is inversely proportional to the laser waist. We achieve a maximum response bandwidth of the receiver about 6.8 MHz. Finally, we design an architecture of multi-channel lasers excitation for increasing the response and keeping the sensitivity, simultaneously. Our work has the potential to extend the applications of Rydberg atoms in communications.