Adsorbate dynamics on a silica-coated gold surface measured by Rydberg Stark spectroscopy

Trapping a Rydberg atom close to a surface is an important step towards the realisation of many proposals for quantum information processing or hybrid quantum systems. One of the challenges in these experiments is posed by the electric field emanating from contaminations on the surface. Here we report on measurements of an electric field created by ⁸⁷Rb atoms adsorbed on a 25 nm thick layer of SiO₂, covering a 90 nm layer of Au. The electric field is measured using a two-photon transition to the and states. The electric field value that we measure is higher than typical values measured above metal surfaces, but is consistent with a recent measurement above a SiO₂ surface. In addition, we measure the temporal behaviour of the field and observe that we can reduce it in a single experimental cycle, using ultraviolet light or by mildly locally heating the surface with one of the excitation lasers, whereas the buildup of the field takes thousands of cycles. We explain these results by a change in the adatom distribution on the surface. These results indicate that, while the stray electric field can be reduced, achieving field-free conditions above a silica-coated gold chip remains challenging.