Widefield Microwave Imaging in Alkali Vapor Cells with sub-100 um Resolution

TL;DR

This paper introduces a high-resolution widefield microwave imaging technique using microfabricated alkali vapor cells, achieving sub-100 micrometer spatial resolution and enabling detailed magnetic field mapping near structures.

Contribution

The work demonstrates a novel imaging system with sub-100 um resolution using vapor cells, surpassing previous surface-feature resolution limits and enabling practical near-field imaging of microwave and magnetic fields.

Findings

Achieved 50 um spatial resolution in microwave imaging.

Demonstrated imaging of fields as close as 150 um to structures.

Sensitivity of 1.4 uT/√Hz per 50x50x140 um³ voxel.

Abstract

We report on widefield microwave vector field imaging with sub um resolution using a microfabricated alkali vapor cell. The setup can additionally image dc magnetic fields, and can be configured to image microwave electric fields. Our camera-based widefield imaging system records 2D images with a 6x6 mm2 field of view at a rate of 10 Hz. It provides up to 50 um spatial resolution, and allows imaging of fields as close as 150 um above structures, through the use of thin external cell walls. This is crucial in allowing us to take practical advantage of the high spatial resolution, as feature sizes in near-fields are on the order of the distance from their source, and represents an order of magnitude improvement in surface-feature resolution compared to previous vapor cell experiments. We present microwave and dc magnetic field images above a selection of devices, demonstrating a microwave sensitivity of 1.4 uT/sqrt-Hz per 50x50x140 um3 voxel, at present limited by the speed of our camera system. Since we image 120x120 voxels in parallel, a single scanned sensor would require a sensitivity of at least 12 nT/sqrt-Hz to produce images with the same sensitivity. Our technique could prove transformative in the design, characterisation, and debugging of microwave devices, as there are currently no satisfactory established microwave imaging techniques. Moreover, it could find applications in medical imaging.