Metasurface-Assisted Rydberg-Atom Sensor with Wavefront Shaping and Enhanced Sensitivity

Rydberg-atom electric-field sensors have emerged as an important research direction in quantum precision measurement, owing to their intrinsic SI traceability, noninvasive measurement capability, and wide frequency tunability. However, under free-space conditions, the geometric divergence of microwaves (MWs) limits the practical detection performance of the system. In this work, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a metasurface-assisted Rydberg-atom hybrid sensor. Through introducing wavefront shaping of the incident microwave field with a metasurface (MS), electric-field enhancement in the atomic sensing region is achieved. Without altering the intrinsic sensitivity of the Rydberg-atom sensor, the equivalent sensitivity of the hybrid sensor is improved to 57.3nVcm−1Hz−1/2. This scheme provides a new route toward high-sensitivity, integrated quantum sensing of the microwave electric field.