MEMS and NEMS with integrated cavity optomechanical readout

Abstract

By integrating microdisk optical cavities with MEMS and NEMS, we achieve on-chip interferometric motion sensing with better than 1 fm/Hz½ precision and 1 GHz bandwidth. These transducers are less than 20 um in size, stable, self-aligned and fiber connectorized. Silicon-on-insulator (SOI) fabrication, operation at standard telecom wavelengths and design separating optical and mechanical parts enable a variety of applications. We read out picogram-scale nanomechanical probes for high speed atomic force microscopy (AFM). We also demonstrate 1000x suppression of random thermal motion of an electrostatically actuated MEMS transducer, using feedback to optimize for high bandwidth mechanical force sensing.