Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency and Autler–Townes splitting in a weak radio-frequency electric field**Project supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2017YFA0304203), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61475090, 61675123, 61775124, and 11804202), the State Key Program of National Natural Science of China (Grant Nos. 11434007 and 61835007), and the Changjiang Scholars

Abstract

We utilize an electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) of a three-level cascade system involving Rydberg state in a room-temperature cell, formed with a cesium 6S1/2–6P3/2–66S1/2 scheme, to investigate the Autler–Townes (AT) splitting resulting from a 15.21-GHz radio-frequency (RF) field that couples the Rydberg transition. The radio-frequency electric field induced AT splitting, γAT, is defined as the peak-to-peak distance of an EIT-AT spectrum. The dependence of AT splitting γAT on the probe and coupling Rabi frequency, Ωp and Ωc, is investigated. It is found that the EIT-AT splitting strongly depends on the EIT linewidth that is related to the probe and coupling Rabi frequency in a weak RF-field regime. Using a narrow linewidth EIT spectrum would decrease the uncertainty of the RF field measurements. This work provides new experimental evidence for the theoretical framework in [J. Appl. Phys. 121, 233106 (2017)].