Electric Field Sensor Design for Longwave Radio Reception

A novel electric field sensor is presented to detect longwave radio waves (≪500 kHz) with an ideal sensitivity of 6.8 nV/m(Hz)-1/2. A magnetic field version already exists, known as the AWESOME instrument, which is deployed worldwide for ionospheric remote sensing, lightning geolocation, space weather monitoring, and more. We present here the electric field companion, including design and performance characteristics of the electric field sensor as well as longwave sensor design considerations. We also describe extended applications of AWESOME enabled by combining magnetic and electric field sensors.