An Atomic Receiver for AM and FM Radio Communication

• Published in: IEEE transactions on antennas and propagation Vol. 69; no. 5; pp. 2455 - 2462
• Main Authors: Anderson, David Alexander, Sapiro, Rachel Elizabeth, Raithel, Georg
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.05.2021; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Antennas; Atom optics; Atomic antenna; Atomic measurements; atomic radio; atomic receiver; Bandwidths; Baseband; Cesium; Circuits; Demodulation; Electromagnetic fields; Electromagnetic interference; Frequency modulation; Microwave communications; multiband; Octaves; Optical receivers; quantum; quantum technologies; Radio communications; Radio frequency; Radio reception; Receivers & amplifiers; Rydberg atoms; Waveforms
• ISSN: 0018-926X; 1558-2221
• DOI: 10.1109/TAP.2020.2987112

Radio reception relies on antennas for the collection of electromagnetic fields carrying information, and receiver elements for demodulation and retrieval of the transmitted information. Here, we demonstrate an atom-based receiver for AM and FM microwave communication with a 3 dB bandwidth in the baseband of ~100 kHz that provides optical circuit-free field pickup, multiband carrier capability, and inherently high field sensitivity. The atom-based receiver exploits field-sensitive cesium Rydberg vapors in a centimeter-sized glass cell, and electromagnetically induced transparency, a quantum-optical effect, as a readout of baseband signals modulated onto carriers with frequencies ranging over four octaves, from <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">C </tex-math></inline-formula>-band to <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">Q </tex-math></inline-formula>-band. Receiver bandwidth, dynamic range and sideband suppression are characterized, and acquisition of audio waveforms of human vocals demonstrated. The atomic receiver is a valuable receiver technology because it does not require antenna structures and is resilient against electromagnetic interference, while affording multiband operation in a single compact receiving element.