Wideband Quantum Transduction for Rydberg Atomic Receivers Using Six-Wave Mixing

2026-02-15

AI Summary

This work addresses the limited baseband bandwidth—typically tens to hundreds of kilohertz—of conventional Rydberg atom-based receivers relying on electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), which hinders their applicability to broadband wireless communication. The authors propose a six-wave mixing (SWM)-based Rydberg atom receiver and, for the first time, establish a baseband input–output model linking the radio-frequency (RF) input to the output optical field. They derive an analytical expression for the 3-dB bandwidth under the SWM scheme, revealing its dependence on key optical and RF parameters. Employing communication-compatible metrics such as the 1-dB compression point (P1dB) and third-order input intercept point (IIP3), the study systematically characterizes the trade-off between bandwidth and linearity. Experimental results demonstrate that, under identical optical driving conditions, the SWM approach enhances the 3-dB bandwidth by over an order of magnitude while maintaining comparable electric field sensitivity and a broad linear dynamic range.

Technology Category

• Machine Learning: Mixture of Experts (MoE)
• Multiagent Systems: Agent Communication
• Search and Optimization: Mixed Discrete/Continuous Search

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Web performance, measurement, and characterization
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metrics
• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements

Abstract

Rydberg atomic receivers hold extremely high sensitivity to electric fields, yet their effective 3-dB baseband bandwidth under conventional electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) is typically constrained to tens to a few hundreds of kilohertz, which hinders wideband wireless applications. To relax this bottleneck, we investigate a six-wave mixing (SWM)-based Rydberg atomic receiver as a wideband radio frequency (RF)-to-optical quantum transducer. Specifically, we develop an explicit baseband input-output model spanning from the probe input to the output light field. Based upon this model, a closed-form 3-dB bandwidth expression is derived to expose its dependence on key optical and RF parameters. We further quantify the linear dynamic range by employing the 1-dB compression point (P1dB) and the input-referred third-order intercept point (IIP3), unveiling a communication-compatible characterization of the bandwidth-linearity trade-off. Finally, our numerical results demonstrate that, given identical optical driving conditions, the SWM configuration increases the 3-dB baseband bandwidth by more than an order of magnitude compared to the EIT-based counterpart, while retaining comparable electric-field sensitivity and revealing a broad, tunable linear operating region.

Problem

• Rydberg atomic receivers
• bandwidth limitation
• wideband wireless applications
• quantum transduction
• electromagnetically induced transparency

Innovation

• Six-Wave Mixing
• Rydberg Atomic Receiver
• Quantum Transduction
• Wideband RF-to-Optical
• Electromagnetically Induced Transparency