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arXiv · 1209.6550

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

D. Barredo·H. Kübler·R. Daschner·R. Löw·T. Pfau
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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.

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D. Barredo, H. Kübler, R. Daschner, R. Löw, T. Pfau. 2012-09-28. Electrical read out for coherent phenomena involving Rydberg atoms in thermal vapor cells. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.110.123002

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