John Dickson Qualifier
Event starts on this day
May
25
2026
Featured Speaker(s):
John Dickson
Event starts on this day
May
25
2026
Title: Sensing Electric Fields with Rydberg Atoms
Abstract: Rydberg atoms have many properties which make them highly sensitive to external electric fields. Considerable effort has been devoted to the development of Rydberg quantum sensors in the kHz to THz frequency regime. However, lower frequency regimes have been sparsely explored, such as the extremely low frequency (ELF) regime. Achieving Rydberg excitation for these applications requires the stabilization and coordination of multiple disparate laser wavelengths.
In this talk, I will discuss our investigation of the common-mode noise properties of a monolithic multi-bore optical cavity and how this platform enables stable excitation of Rubidium atoms to Rydberg states. I will then present a novel Rubidium atomic beam experiment designed for ELF electric field sensing and demonstrate performance comparable to current state-of-the-art sensors in this frequency regime.