Detecting and Receiving Phase-Modulated Signals With a Rydberg Atom-Based Receiver

Published

September 2, 2019

Author(s)

Christopher L. Holloway, Matthew T. Simons, Joshua A. Gordon, David R. Novotny

Abstract

Recently, we introduced a Rydberg-atom based mixer capable of detecting and measuring of the phase of a radio-frequency field through the electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) and Autler-Townes (AT) effect. The ability to measure phase with this mixer allows for a atom-based receiver to detect digital modulated communication signals. In this paper, we demonstrate detection and reception of digital modulated signals based on various phase-shift keying approaches. We demonstrate Rydberg atom-based digital reception of binary phase-shift keying (BPSK), quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK), and quadrature amplitude (QAM) modulated signals over a 19.626~GHz carrier to transmit and receive a bit stream and received in cesium vapor. We present measured values of Error Vector Magnitude (EVM, a parameter used to access how accurate a symbol or bit stream is received) as a function symbol rates for BPSK, QPSK, 16QAM, 32QAM, 64QAM. These results allow us to discusses the bandwidth of a Rydberg-atom based receiver system.

Citation

Applied Physics Letters

Volume

18

Issue

9

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

Rydberg atom, mixer, phase measurements, field meterology, quantum optics, atomic physics

Citation

Holloway, C. , Simons, M. , Gordon, J. and Novotny, D. (2019), Detecting and Receiving Phase-Modulated Signals With a Rydberg Atom-Based Receiver, Applied Physics Letters, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=927743 (Accessed October 20, 2025)