Electrical read out for coherent phenomena involving Rydberg atoms in thermal vapor cells

TL;DR

This paper introduces a highly sensitive electrical method to measure Rydberg state populations in thermal vapor cells, offering advantages over optical techniques with improved signal-to-noise ratio.

Contribution

It demonstrates a scalable electrical detection technique for Rydberg states in thermal vapor cells, aligning experimental results with theoretical models.

Findings

Electrical detection matches theoretical Rydberg population predictions

Signal-to-noise ratio surpasses optical detection methods

Method is scalable and suitable for thermal vapor environments

Abstract

We present a very sensitive and scalable method to measure the population of highly excited Rydberg states in a thermal vapor cell of rubidium atoms. We detect the Rydberg ionization current in a 5 mm electrically contacted cell. The measured current is found to be in excellent agreement with a theory for the Rydberg population based on a master equation for the three level problem including an ionization channel and the full Doppler distributions at the corresponding temperatures. The signal-to-noise ratio of the current detection is substantially better than purely optical techniques.