Electric field metrology for SI traceability: Systematic measurement uncertainties in electromagnetically induced transparency in atomic vapor

Published

May 24, 2017

Author(s)

Christopher L. Holloway, Matthew T. Simons, Joshua A. Gordon, Georg Raithel, dave Anderson

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between the Rabi frequency ($\Ω_{RF}$, related to the applied electric field) and Autler-Townes (AT) splitting, when performing atom-based radio- frequency (RF) electric (E) field strength measurements using Rydberg states and electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in atomic vapor. The AT splitting satisfies, under certain conditions, a well-defined linear relationship with the applied RF field amplitude. The EIT/AT-based E-field measurement approach derived from these principles is currently investigated by several groups around the world as a means to develop a new international SI traceable RF E-field measurement technique. We establish conditions under which the measured AT-splitting is an approximately linear function of the RF electric field. A quantitative description of systematic deviations from the linear relationship is key to exploiting EIT/AT-based atomic-vapor spectroscopy for SI- traceable field measurement. We show that the linear relationship is valid as long as the EIT linewidth is smaller then the AT splitting. We also discuss interesting aspects of the thermal dependence (i.e., hot- versus cold-atom) of this EIT-AT technique, where an analysis of the transition from cold-to hot-atom EIT in a Doppler-mismatched cascade system reveals a significant change of the dependence of the EIT linewidth on the optical Rabi frequencies and of the AT-splitting on $\Ω_{RF}$.

Citation

Journal of Applied Physics

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

EIT, atom-based metrology, electric field, rydberg atoms

Citation

Holloway, C. , Simons, M. , Gordon, J. , Raithel, G. and Anderson, D. (2017), Electric field metrology for SI traceability: Systematic measurement uncertainties in electromagnetically induced transparency in atomic vapor, Journal of Applied Physics, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=923077 (Accessed October 9, 2025)