Chip-Scale Rydberg Atomic Electrometer

An ideal electrometer should measure electric fields accurately while causing minimal disturbance to the field itself. Rydberg atomic electrometers are promising candidates for ideal electrometry due to their SI traceability and non-invasive nature. However, in practice, the atomic vapor cell shell can distort the electric field, limiting the device’s performance. In this work, we overcome this challenge by fabricating a chip-scale vapor cell using a novel combination of femtosecond laser writing and optical contact. This method enables the development of a non-invasive atomic electrometer with a radar cross-section (RCS) 20 dB lower than that of commercial atomic cell-based electrometers. The device also achieves an electric-field sensitivity of 71.9 μV/m/Hz 1/2 . Furthermore, we observe a new sub-Doppler spectral narrowing phenomenon in these chip-scale cells. The effect originates from an incoherent, collision-driven mechanism—hereafter referred to as incoherent Dicke narrowing (ICDN). This advancement supports future revisions to the international system of units and broadens applications in metrology and quantum measurement.