Doppler Tomography Using Rydberg Sensors

TL;DR

This paper explores the use of Rydberg atom-based sensors for electromagnetic field imaging, introducing a novel null placement method and an image deblurring algorithm for improved Doppler tomography.

Contribution

It presents a new approach for electromagnetic tomography using Rydberg sensors, including null placement modulation and an image deblurring technique.

Findings

Demonstrated null placement modulation for phase information recovery.

Developed an algorithm for deblurring Rydberg sensor images.

Showed potential for improved electromagnetic field imaging.

Abstract

Novel sensors that leverage the quantum properties of atoms for measuring propagating electromagnetic fields are becoming increasingly practical for a variety of applications. These sensors rely on the phenomenon of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), which is induced in a confined vapor of alkali atoms when the atoms are excited to a high-energy quantum state, known as a Rydberg state, with multiple resonant optical fields. In this state, the atoms are highly sensitive to electromagnetic radiation and yield a measurement output proportional to the magnitude of an impinging electric field when resonant with a Rydberg-Rydberg transition. In this paper, we consider the use of Rydberg sensors for a tomographic imaging application through a set of modeled system dynamics. Our contribution includes a novel method for placing nulls in the image by modulating the radiated local oscillator (LO) that is used to recover phase information from the received signal. We also present an algorithm for deblurring the image.