Quantum detection of millimeter wave electric fields with driving surface-state electrons
Phys. Rev. A 112, 032602 – Published 2 September, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/pvc5-1hwb
Abstract
We introduce a spin-based receiver to sensitively detect the electric fields of millimeter waves by using a quantum interferometric approach. The proposed quantum sensor consists of many surface-state electrons trapped individually on liquid helium by an electrode network at the bottom of the liquid helium film. A dc current in this chip is biased to generate strong spin-orbit coupling of each of the trapped electrons. The millimeter wave signals are conducted to nondissipatedly drive the orbital motions of the trapped electrons and result in Stark shifts of the spin-orbit dressed states of the electrons. As a consequence, the electric fields of the conducted millimeter waves could be detected sensitively by using Hahn echo interferometry with the long-lived spin states of the electrons trapped on liquid helium.
