Spatially Resolved Excitation of Rydberg Atoms and Surface Effects on an Atom Chip

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates spatially resolved excitation of Rydberg atoms on an atom chip using EIT, revealing surface-induced energy shifts and long-lived Rydberg states, paving the way for advanced quantum applications.

Contribution

It introduces a method for spatially resolved Rydberg excitation on an atom chip and characterizes surface effects on Rydberg energy levels.

Findings

Distance-dependent Rydberg energy shifts (~10 MHz) observed.

EIT resonances remain narrow (<4 MHz) near the surface.

Surface electric fields are consistent with adsorbate models.

Abstract

We demonstrate spatially resolved, coherent excitation of Rydberg atoms on an atom chip. Electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) is used to investigate the properties of the Rydberg atoms near the gold coated chip surface. We measure distance dependent shifts (~10 MHz) of the Rydberg energy levels caused by a spatially inhomogeneous electric field. The measured field strength and distance dependence is in agreement with a simple model for the electric field produced by a localized patch of Rb adsorbates deposited on the chip surface during experiments. The EIT resonances remain narrow (< 4 MHz) and the observed widths are independent of atom-surface distance down to ~20 \mum, indicating relatively long lifetime of the Rydberg states. Our results open the way to studies of dipolar physics, collective excitations, quantum metrology and quantum information processing involving interacting Rydberg excited atoms on atom chips.