Atom-Based Vector Microwave Electrometry Using Rubidium Rydberg Atoms in a Vapor Cell

It is clearly important to pursue atomic standards for quantities like electromagnetic fields, time, length, and gravity. We have recently shown using Rydberg states that Rb atoms in a vapor cell can serve as a practical, compact standard for microwave electric field strength. Here we demonstrate for the first time that Rb atoms excited in a vapor cell can also be used for vector microwave electrometry by using Rydberg-atom electromagnetically induced transparency. We describe the measurements necessary to obtain an arbitrary microwave electric field polarization at a resolution of 0.5°. We compare the experiments to theory and find them to be in excellent agreement.