Related papers: Detection of photon-level signals embedded in sunlight with an atomic photodetector

Detection of photon-level signals embedded in sunlight with an atomic photodetector

URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2512.02521v1
Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2025 08:29:07 GMT
Title: Detection of photon-level signals embedded in sunlight with an atomic photodetector
Authors: Laura Zarraoa, Romain Veyron, Tomas Lamich, Sondos Elsehimy, Morgan W. Mitchell,
Abstract summary: Recent work demonstrated that trapped single atoms can act as low dark-count narrow-band photodetectors.<n>We show that this quantum jump photodetector'' (QJPD) approach can also detect photon-level signals embedded in strong sunlight.
Score: 0.0
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Abstract: The detection of few-photon signals in a broadband background is an extreme challenge for photon counting, requiring filtering that accepts a narrow range of optical frequencies while strongly rejecting all others. Recent work [Zarraoa et. al, Phys. Rev. Res. 6, 033338 (2024)] demonstrated that trapped single atoms can act as low dark-count narrow-band photodetectors. Here we show that this ``quantum jump photodetector'' (QJPD) approach can also detect photon-level signals embedded in strong sunlight. Using a single rubidium atom as a QJPD, we count arrivals of individual narrow-band laser photons embedded in sunlight powers of order $10^{10}$ photons/s. We derive a rate-equation model for the atom's internal-state dynamics in sunlight, and find quantitative agreement with experiment. Using this model, we calculate the channel capacity over a noisy communication channel when sending weak coherent states and detecting them in the presence of sunlight, achieving a representative rate of 0.5 bits per symbol when sending 150 probe photons per 10 ms time-bin, embedded in 1 nW of sunlight (of order $10^{10}$ photons/s in the visible and near-infrared bands). The demonstration may benefit background-limited applications such as daytime light detection and ranging (LIDAR), remote magnetometry, and free-space classical and quantum optical communications.

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