Quantum-optical spectroscopy for plasma electric field measurements and diagnostics
Abstract
Measurements of plasma electric fields are essential to the advancement of plasma science and applications. Methods for non-invasive in situ measurements of plasma fields on sub-millimeter length scales with high sensitivity over a large field range remain an outstanding challenge. Here, we introduce and demonstrate a new method for plasma electric field measurement that employs electromagnetically induced transparency as a high-resolution quantum-optical probe for the Stark energy level shifts of plasma-embedded Rydberg atoms, which serve as highly-sensitive field sensors with a large dynamic range. The method is applied in diagnostics of plasmas photo-excited out of a cesium vapor. The plasma electric fields are extracted from spatially-resolved measurements of field-induced shape changes and shifts of Rydberg resonances in rubidium tracer atoms. Measurement capabilities over a range of plasma densities and temperatures are exploited to characterize plasmas in applied magnetic fields and to image electric-field distributions in cyclotron-heated plasmas.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1712.08717,
title = {Quantum-optical spectroscopy for plasma electric field measurements and diagnostics},
author = {David A. Anderson and Georg Raithel and Matthew Simons and Christopher L. Holloway},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1712.08717},
year = {2017}
}