Tu Hai-Tao, Liao Kai-Yu, Wang Hong-Lei, Zhu Yi-Fei, Qiu Si-Yuan, Jiang Hao, Huang Wei, Bian Wu, Yan Hui, Zhu Shi-Liang
Key Laboratory of Atomic and Subatomic Structure and Quantum Control (Ministry of Education), Guangdong Basic Research Center of Excellence for Structure and Fundamental Interactions of Matter, School of Physics, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510006, China.
Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Quantum Engineering and Quantum Materials, Guangdong-Hong Kong Joint Laboratory of Quantum Matter, Frontier Research Institute for Physics, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510006, China.
Sci Adv. 2024 Dec 20;10(51):eads0683. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.ads0683.
The development of a microwave electrometer with inherent uncertainty approaching its ultimate limit carries both fundamental and technological significance. However, because of the thermal motion of atoms, the state-of-art Rydberg electrometer falls considerably short of the standard quantum limit by about three orders of magnitude. Here, we use an optically thin medium with approximately 5.2 × 10 laser-cooled atoms to implement the microwave heterodyne detection. By mitigating various noises and strategically optimizing the electrometer parameters, our study reduces the equivalent noise temperature by a factor of 20 and achieves an electric field sensitivity of 10.0 nV cm Hz, lastly reaching a factor of 2.6 above the standard quantum limit. Our work also provides valuable insights into the inherent capabilities and limitations of Rydberg electrometers, offering superior sensitivity in detecting weak microwave signals for numerous applications.
开发一种固有不确定性接近其极限的微波静电计具有重要的基础和技术意义。然而，由于原子的热运动，目前最先进的里德堡静电计比标准量子极限低了大约三个数量级。在此，我们使用一种包含约5.2×10个激光冷却原子的光学稀薄介质来实现微波外差检测。通过减轻各种噪声并战略性地优化静电计参数，我们的研究将等效噪声温度降低了20倍，实现了10.0 nV cm Hz的电场灵敏度，最终比标准量子极限高出2.6倍。我们的工作还为里德堡静电计的固有能力和局限性提供了有价值的见解，在众多应用中检测微弱微波信号时具有卓越的灵敏度。
