Electrometry near a dielectric surface using Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a highly sensitive method for measuring electric fields near dielectric surfaces using Rydberg EIT, revealing the impact of surface adsorbates and their response dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel application of Rydberg EIT for near-surface electrometry and models adsorbate effects with dielectric considerations.

Findings

Adsorbates produce significant electric fields near the surface.

The electric field response has a time constant of about one second.

Transient fields are well modeled by Laplace's equation with an effective dielectric constant.

Abstract

Electrometry near a dielectric surface is performed using Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). The large polarizability of high n-state Rydberg atoms gives this method extreme sensitivity. We show that adsorbates on the dielectric surface produce a significant electric field that responds to an applied field with a time constant of order one second. For transient applied fields (with a time scale of < 1 s) we observe good agreement with calculations based on numerical solutions of Laplace's equation using an effective dielectric constant to simulate the bulk dielectric.