A warm Rydberg atom-based quadrature amplitude-modulated receiver

Rydberg atoms exhibit both remarkable sensitivity to electromagnetic fields making them promising candidates for revolutionizing field sensors and, unlike conventional antennas, they neither disturb the measured field nor necessitate extensive calibration procedures. In this study, we propose a receiver design for data-modulated signal reception near the 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi frequency band, harnessing the capabilities of warm Rydberg atoms. Our focus lies on exploring various quadrature amplitude modulations and transmission frequencies through heterodyne detection. We offer a comprehensive characterization of our setup, encompassing the atomic response frequency range, attainable electric field amplitudes, and sensitivity, which we estimate to be equal to 0.50 µV cm −1 Hz −0.5 . Additionally, we delve into analyzing communication errors using Voronoi diagrams and evaluating the communication channel capacity across different modulation schemes. We find that the maximum achievable capacity for a single communication channel equals 19.3 Mbps and can be achieved using the Q A M 4 scheme.