Hannover 2016 – scientific programme
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A: Fachverband Atomphysik
A 20: Atomic systems in external fields
A 20.6: Poster
Tuesday, March 1, 2016, 16:30–19:00, Empore Lichthof
Frequency tunable microwave field imaging with sub-100 µm resolution using atomic vapor cells — •Andrew Horsley, Guan-Xiang Du, and Philipp Treutlein — University of Basel, Switzerland
We have developed a technique for imaging microwave magnetic fields using alkali vapor cells, detecting microwaves through Rabi oscillations driven on atomic hyperfine transitions. This could prove transformative in the design, characterisation, and debugging of microwave devices (e.g. atom chips or ion traps), as there are currently no established microwave imaging techniques. Our technique may also find applications in medical imaging. We have built a high resolution imaging system, whose 50×50×140 µm3 spatial resolution, 1 µT/Hz1/2 sensitivity, and 150 µm approach distance are now sufficient for characterising a range of real world devices at fixed microwave frequencies [1].
Frequency tunability is essential for wider applications, however we can only detect microwaves that are resonant with an atomic transition. Our solution is to use a large dc magnetic field to Zeeman shift the hyperfine ground state transitions to any desired frequency. In addition to high resolution images of 6.8 GHz microwave fields, we present results from a proof-of-principle setup, where we have used a 0.8 T solenoid to detect microwaves from 2.3 to 26.4 GHz.
[1] A. Horsley, G.-X. Du and P. Treutlein, Imaging of Electromagnetic Fields in Alkali Vapor Cells with sub-100 µm Resolution, New Journal of Physics, 17(11), 112002, (2015)