Independent Rydberg atom sensing using a dual-ladder scheme

Abstract

Rydberg atom-based electric field sensing can provide all-optical readout of radio frequency (RF) fields in a dielectric environment. However, because a single set of optical fields is typically used to prepare the Rydberg state and readout its response to RF fields, it is challenging to perform simultaneous and independent measurements of the RF field(s). Here, we show that using two independent schemes to prepare and readout the same Rydberg state can be used to perform independent measurements in general, which we demonstrate specifically by resolving the RF polarization. We expect this work will be useful for fiber-coupled sensor heads where spatial multiplexing is challenging as well as for complex multi-level sensing schemes.