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Rydberg Atomic Receivers for Multi-Band Communications and Sensing

Mingyao Cui, Qunsong Zeng, Minze Chen, Zhanwei Wang, Tianqi Mao, Dezhi Zheng, Kaibin Huang

TL;DR

This work provides the first closed-form analytical transfer function for multi-band Rydberg Atomic Receivers (RAREs) by solving the steady-state Lindblad master equation for a (N+3)-level system. It reveals that a multi-band RARE acts as both a multi-band mixer down-converting each band to a common intermediate frequency and a multi-band amplifier whose bandwise gains split into a global gain and a band-specific Rabi attention. The authors derive optimal global gain (via the optimal effective Rabi frequency) and optimal band allocations (Rabi attentions) to maximize sensitivity and downstream CommunSense metrics, and validate the theory through hardware experiments and numerical simulations. The results demonstrate substantial gains in both multi-band communications and sensing performance, providing concrete guidelines for deploying multi-band RAREs in practical CommunSense systems. Overall, the paper establishes a rigorous framework to design, optimize, and validate multi-band quantum receivers that unify sub-6G, mmWave, and THz bands within a single device, offering potential breakthroughs for integrated wireless sensing and communications.

Abstract

Harnessing multi-level electron transitions, Rydberg Atomic REceivers (RAREs) can detect wireless signals across a wide range of frequency bands, from Megahertz to Terahertz. This capability enables multi-band wireless communications and sensing (CommunSense). Existing research on multi-band RAREs primarily focuses on experimental demonstrations, lacking a tractable model to mathematically characterize their mechanisms. This issue leaves the multi-band RARE as a black box and poses challenges in its practical applications. To fill in this gap, this paper investigates the underlying mechanism of multiband RAREs and explores their optimal performance. For the first time, an analytical transfer function with a closed-form expression for multi-band RAREs is derived by solving the quantum response of Rydberg atoms. It shows that a multiband RARE simultaneously serves as a multi-band atomic mixer for down-converting multi-band signals and a multi-band atomic amplifier that reflects its sensitivity to each band. Further analysis of the atomic amplifier unveils that the intrinsic gain at each frequency band can be decoupled into a global gain term and a Rabi attention term. The former determines the overall sensitivity of a RARE to all frequency bands of wireless signals. The latter influences the allocation of the overall sensitivity to each frequency band, representing a unique attention mechanism of multi-band RAREs. The optimal design of the global gain is provided to maximize the overall sensitivity of multi-band RAREs. Subsequently, the optimal Rabi attentions are also derived to maximize the practical multi-band CommunSense performance. An experiment platform is built to validate the effectiveness of the derived transfer function, and numerical results confirm the superiority of multi-band RAREs.

Rydberg Atomic Receivers for Multi-Band Communications and Sensing

TL;DR

This work provides the first closed-form analytical transfer function for multi-band Rydberg Atomic Receivers (RAREs) by solving the steady-state Lindblad master equation for a (N+3)-level system. It reveals that a multi-band RARE acts as both a multi-band mixer down-converting each band to a common intermediate frequency and a multi-band amplifier whose bandwise gains split into a global gain and a band-specific Rabi attention. The authors derive optimal global gain (via the optimal effective Rabi frequency) and optimal band allocations (Rabi attentions) to maximize sensitivity and downstream CommunSense metrics, and validate the theory through hardware experiments and numerical simulations. The results demonstrate substantial gains in both multi-band communications and sensing performance, providing concrete guidelines for deploying multi-band RAREs in practical CommunSense systems. Overall, the paper establishes a rigorous framework to design, optimize, and validate multi-band quantum receivers that unify sub-6G, mmWave, and THz bands within a single device, offering potential breakthroughs for integrated wireless sensing and communications.

Abstract

Harnessing multi-level electron transitions, Rydberg Atomic REceivers (RAREs) can detect wireless signals across a wide range of frequency bands, from Megahertz to Terahertz. This capability enables multi-band wireless communications and sensing (CommunSense). Existing research on multi-band RAREs primarily focuses on experimental demonstrations, lacking a tractable model to mathematically characterize their mechanisms. This issue leaves the multi-band RARE as a black box and poses challenges in its practical applications. To fill in this gap, this paper investigates the underlying mechanism of multiband RAREs and explores their optimal performance. For the first time, an analytical transfer function with a closed-form expression for multi-band RAREs is derived by solving the quantum response of Rydberg atoms. It shows that a multiband RARE simultaneously serves as a multi-band atomic mixer for down-converting multi-band signals and a multi-band atomic amplifier that reflects its sensitivity to each band. Further analysis of the atomic amplifier unveils that the intrinsic gain at each frequency band can be decoupled into a global gain term and a Rabi attention term. The former determines the overall sensitivity of a RARE to all frequency bands of wireless signals. The latter influences the allocation of the overall sensitivity to each frequency band, representing a unique attention mechanism of multi-band RAREs. The optimal design of the global gain is provided to maximize the overall sensitivity of multi-band RAREs. Subsequently, the optimal Rabi attentions are also derived to maximize the practical multi-band CommunSense performance. An experiment platform is built to validate the effectiveness of the derived transfer function, and numerical results confirm the superiority of multi-band RAREs.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 38 sections, 3 theorems, 64 equations, 12 figures, 1 table.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. System Model
  3. Incident Multi-Band Signal Model
  4. Multi-Level Electron Transition Model
  5. Quantum state
  6. Hamiltonian operator
  7. Lindblad master equation
  8. Measured quantum state
  9. An Open Problem
  10. Theoretical Framework of Multi-Band RARE
  11. Solving the Lindblad Master Equation
  12. Transfer Function of Multi-band RAREs
  13. Transfer function at the IF band
  14. Transfer function at the digital baseband
  15. Multi-Band Noise Characterization
  16. ...and 23 more sections

Key Result

Theorem 1

The steady-state solution of $\rho_{12}$ to the Lindblad master equation in eq:lindblad is given by where $\rho_0 \overset{\Delta}{=} \frac{\gamma_2\Omega_{\rm p}}{\gamma_2^2 + 2\Omega_{\rm p}^2}$ and $\Gamma \overset{\Delta}{=} \sqrt{\frac{2\Omega_{\rm p}^2(\Omega_{\rm c}^2 + \Omega_{\rm p}^2)}{\gamma_2^2 + 2\Omega_{\rm p}^2}}$ is related to the electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) lin

Figures (12)

  • Figure 1: (a) Architecture of a multi-band RARE. (b) Multi-level electron transitions for measuring multi-band signals.
  • Figure 2: Equivalent signal transmission model of a multi-band RARE.
  • Figure 3: Decoupling of the multi-band atomic amplifier.
  • Figure 4: The influence of effective Rabi frequency on the $\sqrt{I_{\rm r}}$ curve and the normalized global gain ${\rho_0^2}/{I_{\rm r}}$, both of which are normalized by their maximal values $(\sqrt{I_{\rm r}})_{\rm max}$ and $({\rho_0^2}/{I_{\rm r}})_{\rm max}$.
  • Figure 5: Experiment platform.
  • ...and 7 more figures

Theorems & Definitions (7)

  • Theorem 1
  • proof
  • Definition 1: Effective Rabi frequency and Rabi attentions
  • Theorem 2
  • proof
  • Theorem 3
  • proof