基于里德堡原子的电场测量

里德堡原子具有大的极化率、低的场电离阈值和大的电偶极矩,对外部电磁场十分敏感,可以用来测量电场强度特别是微波电场的强度. 利用里德堡原子的量子干涉效应(电磁诱导透明和Autler-Townes效应)测量微波电场强度的灵敏度远高于传统采用偶极天线测量微波电场的灵敏度. 此外,里德堡原子电场计 可以溯源到标准物理量,不需要额外校准; 采用玻璃探头,对待测电场干扰少; 灵敏度也不依赖于探头的物理尺寸. 同时,该电场计还可以实现对微波电场的偏振方向的测量, 实现亚波长和近场区域电场成像与测量. 通过选择不同的里德堡能级,可以实现1-500 GHz超宽频段范围内微波电场强度的测量. 主要综述基于里德堡原子的电场精密测量研究, 详细介绍了里德堡原子电场计的原理与实验进展, 并简单讨论了其发展方向.     

Coherent Coupling between Microwave and Optical Fields via Cold Atoms

We demonstrate a long-coherent-time coupling between microwave and optical fields through cold atomic ensembles.The phase information of the microwave field is stored in a coherent superposition state of a cold atomic ensemble and is then read out by two optical fields after 12 ms.A similar operation of mapping the phase of optical fields into a cold atomic ensemble and then retrieving by microwave is also demonstrated.These studies demonstrate that long-coherent-time cold atomic ensembles could resonantly couple with microwave and optical fields simultaneously,which paves the way for realizing high-efficiency,high-bandwidth,and noiseless atomic q uant um converters.