Microwave-assisted Rydberg Electromagnetically induced transparency

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates microwave-assisted electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in a Rydberg atomic system, enabling access to high angular momentum Rydberg states for studying exotic molecular states.

Contribution

It introduces a novel microwave-assisted EIT scheme in a four-level Rydberg system, expanding the accessible Rydberg states for quantum research.

Findings

Effective coupling field characterized by Rabi frequency

Microwave spectra of Rydberg EIT measured

Access to high angular momentum Rydberg states demonstrated

Abstract

We demonstrate electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in a four-level cascade-like system, where the two upper levels are Rydberg states coupled by a microwave field. A two-photon transition consisting of an off-resonant microwave field and an off-resonant optical field forms an effective coupling field to induce transparency of the probe light. We characterize the Rabi frequency of the effective coupling field, as well as the EIT microwave spectra. The results show that microwave assisted EIT allows us to efficiently access Rydberg states with relatively high orbital angular momentum $\ell=3$, which is promising for the study of exotic Rydberg molecular states.