Stark-modulated Rydberg dissipative time crystals at room-temperature applied to sub-kHz electric-field sensing

Abstract

Out-of-equilibrium Rydberg gases exhibit emergent many-body phases due to mode competition. Sustained limit cycle oscillations (OSC) emerge when driven by B-fields at room-temperature, forming robust Rydberg dissipative time crystals (DTC). These driven-dissipative Rydberg DTC have recently been shown to develop an effective transition centered at the OSC frequency (-10dB bandwidth of ~1.7kHz, centered at 9.8kHz). Weak RF signals injected within this emergent transition perturb and emerge on the OSC spectrum, from which sensitive and high-resolution sensing of E-fields (~1.6-2.3 uVcm-1Hz-1/2) near the OSC frequencies can be achieved. In this article, it is demonstrated that DC and AC Stark fields in the sub-kHz regime can be used effectively to shift (DC) or modulate (AC) the OSC frequency of Rydberg DTC at room-temperature. The AC-Stark driven modulation of the OSC is shown as an effective technique to sense weak AC E-fields in the sub-kHz regime. With a modest setup, a sensitivity of ~7.8 uVcm-1Hz-1/2 for AC signals at 300Hz (~8.7x improvement over state-of-art Rydberg atom techniques), and high-resolution detection to as low as sub-Hz is demonstrated. This approach enables the development of ultra-compact, extremely low-frequency E-field detectors for applications in remote sensing, communications, navigation, and bio-medical technologies.