Electric field cancellation on quartz: a Rb adsorbate induced negative electron affinity surface

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that Rb adsorbates on quartz create a negative electron affinity surface that cancels electric fields, enabling better integration of Rydberg atoms in quantum systems and advancing atom-surface interaction understanding.

Contribution

We show that Rb adsorbed on quartz induces NEA, leading to electric field cancellation, which is a novel surface modification for quantum applications.

Findings

Rb adsorption induces NEA on quartz surface.

Electric fields from Rb are canceled by bound low-energy electrons.

The NEA surface facilitates atom-surface interaction studies.

Abstract

We investigate the (0001) surface of single crystal quartz with a submonolayer of Rb adsorbates. Using Rydberg atom electromagnetically induced transparency, we investigate the electric fields resulting from Rb adsorbed on the quartz surface, and measure the activation energy of the Rb adsorbates. We show that the adsorbed Rb induces a negative electron affinity (NEA) on the quartz surface. The NEA surface allows low energy electrons to bind to the surface and cancel the electric field from the Rb adsorbates. Our results are important for integrating Rydberg atoms into hybrid quantum systems and the fundamental study of atom-surface interactions, as well as applications for electrons bound to a 2D surface.