Journal
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
Volume 9, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-05597-4
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Funding
- EPSRC [EP/M014398/1, EP/M013103/1, EP/M013243/1]
- European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / ERC Grant [335266]
- FET-PROACT project 'RySQ' [H2020-FETPROACT-2014-640378-YSQ]
- Durham University
- Federal Brazilian Agency of Research (CNPq)
- Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award
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There are few demonstrated examples of phase transitions that may be driven directly by terahertz frequency electric fields, and those that are known require field strengths exceeding 1MV cm(-1). Here we report a non-equilibrium phase transition driven by a weak (<< 1 V cm(-1)), continuous-wave terahertz electric field. The system consists of room temperature caesium vapour under continuous optical excitation to a high-lying Rydberg state, which is resonantly coupled to a nearby level by the terahertz electric field. We use a simple model to understand the underlying physical behaviour, and we demonstrate two protocols to exploit the phase transition as a narrowband terahertz detector: the first with a fast (20 mu s) non-linear response to nano-Watts of incident radiation, and the second with a linearised response and effective noise equivalent power <= 1 pWHz(-1/2). The work opens the door to a class of terahertz devices controlled with low-field intensities and operating in a room temperature environment.
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