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Doppler-free Rydberg spectroscopy in a warm vapor

Jeremy Glick1, Brielle E. Anderson2, T. Nathan Nunley1,3, Josiah Bingaman4, Jian Jun Liu4, David H. Meyer5, and Paul Kunz1,4

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Phys. Rev. A 112, 063726 – Published 22 December, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/qzwk-2g33

Abstract

The common approach for producing Rydberg atoms in warm vapor cells is with lasers arranged in a counterpropagating, collinear configuration. Doppler effects in these configurations reduce the efficiency of excitation to the Rydberg state while also producing broadened spectral features. In this work, we demonstrate a three-laser Doppler-free excitation using laser beams whose k vectors sum to 0, resulting in an enhancement in the Rydberg density and narrowed spectral features. A three-times enhancement to Rydberg density along with a near four-times reduction in spectroscopic linewidths are observed compared to a collinear configuration. This Doppler-free configuration could prove beneficial to Rydberg atomic technologies, such as electric field sensing with small volumes or deterministic photon sources.

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Outline

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Phys. Rev. A 112, 063726– Published 22 December, 2025
  • Received 4 June 2025
  • Accepted 2 October 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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