A low-frequency chip-scale optomechanical oscillator with 58 kHz mechanical stiffening and more than 100th-order stable harmonics

Yongjun Huang; Jaime Gonzalo Flor Flores; Ziqiang Cai; Mingbin Yu; Dim-Lee Kwong; Guangjun Wen; Layne Churchill; Chee Wei Wong

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-04882-4

A low-frequency chip-scale optomechanical oscillator with 58 kHz mechanical stiffening and more than 100^th-order stable harmonics

Sci Rep. 2017 Jun 29;7(1):4383. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-04882-4.

Authors

Yongjun Huang^{1

2}, Jaime Gonzalo Flor Flores³, Ziqiang Cai³, Mingbin Yu⁴, Dim-Lee Kwong⁴, Guangjun Wen⁵, Layne Churchill⁶, Chee Wei Wong⁷

Affiliations

¹ School of Communication and Information Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, 611731, China. [email protected].
² Fang Lu Mesoscopic Optics and Quantum Electronics Laboratory, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA. [email protected].
³ Fang Lu Mesoscopic Optics and Quantum Electronics Laboratory, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.
⁴ Institute of Microelectronics, A*STAR, Singapore, 117865, Singapore.
⁵ School of Communication and Information Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, 611731, China.
⁶ Georgia Tech Research Institute, Atlanta, GA, 30318, USA.
⁷ Fang Lu Mesoscopic Optics and Quantum Electronics Laboratory, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA. [email protected].

Abstract

For the sensitive high-resolution force- and field-sensing applications, the large-mass microelectromechanical system (MEMS) and optomechanical cavity have been proposed to realize the sub-aN/Hz^1/2 resolution levels. In view of the optomechanical cavity-based force- and field-sensors, the optomechanical coupling is the key parameter for achieving high sensitivity and resolution. Here we demonstrate a chip-scale optomechanical cavity with large mass which operates at ≈77.7 kHz fundamental mode and intrinsically exhibiting large optomechanical coupling of 44 GHz/nm or more, for both optical resonance modes. The mechanical stiffening range of ≈58 kHz and a more than 100^th-order harmonics are obtained, with which the free-running frequency instability is lower than 10^-6 at 100 ms integration time. Such results can be applied to further improve the sensing performance of the optomechanical inspired chip-scale sensors.

Publication types

Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't