A Three-Photon Rydberg Atom-Based Radio Frequency Sensing Scheme with Narrow Linewidth

Abstract: We demonstrate Rydberg atom-based radio frequency sensing with a colinear three-photon scheme in a room temperature cesium vapor cell that minimizes residual Doppler broadening of the probe laser absorption feature. A sub-200 kHz spectral linewidth is observed and extends the self-calibrated Autler-Townes sensing regime to weaker fields by a factor of ~18 compared to the theoretical limit of the most commonly used two-photon scheme. The sensitivity of the method to microsecond pulses is shown to be sufficient to detect radio frequency Rabi frequencies of 2$\pi$ x 0.44 MHz using a 480 kHz bandwidth at 108.9 GHz, demonstrating the ability to sense time-dependent signals suitable for radar and communications.