Electric-field sensing near the surface microstructure of an atom chip using cold Rydberg atoms

摘要

The electric fields near the heterogeneous metal-dielectric surface of an atom chip were measured using coldnatoms. The atomic sensitivity to electric fields was enhanced by exciting the atoms to Rydberg states that aren108 times more polarizable than the ground state. We attribute the measured fields to charging of the insulatorsnbetween the atom chip wires. Surprisingly, it is found that although the chip wire currents were turned off beforenRydberg excitation, the measured fields were strongly influenced by how the wire currents had been applied.nThese fields may be dramatically lowered with appropriate voltage biasing, suggesting configurations for thenfuture development of hybrid quantum systems.