Rydberg Atom-Based Electrometry

During my student internship at the Norwegian National Security Authority (NSM), I researched Rydberg atom-based electrometry (RE). The research and literature review culminated in a 30-page compendium which gives an intro to the subject for readers familiar with quantum mechanics at undergraduate to graduate level.

What is Rydberg atom-based electrometry?

Instead of using a classical dipole antenna to measure electric field oscillations, one excites atoms to high-lying Rydberg states and measures the Rabi oscillations between the upper energy states of the atomic energy ladder through different read-out methods.

The most popular read-out method is using a two-laser setup and measuring the probe laser's transmission through a Rydberg gas. The field strength of the MW field at the atoms' transition resonance frequencies are proportional to the Autler-Townes splitting of the electromagnetically induced tranparency (EIT) window in the transmission spectra.