Optomechanical crystals for spatial sensing of submicron sized analytes
arXiv:2011.03444 · doi:10.1038/s41598-021-87558-4
Abstract
Optomechanical crystal cavities have rich perspectives for detecting and indirectly analysing biological particles, such as proteins, bacteria and viruses. In this work we demonstrate the working principle of an optomechanical crystal cavity operating under ambient conditions as a sensor of submicrometer analytes by optically monitoring the frequency shift of thermally activated mechanical modes. The resonator has been specifically designed so that the cavity region supports a particular family of low modal-volume mechanical modes, commonly known as -pinch modes-. These involve the oscillation of only a couple of adjacent cavity cells that are relatively insensitive to perturbations in other parts of the resonator. The eigenfrequency of these modes decreases as the deformation is localized closer to the centre of the resonator. Thus, by identifying specific modes that undergo a frequency shift that amply exceeds the mechanical linewidth, it is possible to infer if there are particles deposited on the resonator, how many are there and their approximate position within the cavity region.
arXiv comment15 pages, 3 figures, Supplementary Info (10 pages, 9 figures)
References in corpus (10)
- Cavity Optomechanics
- Optomechanical Crystals
- Analysis of radiation-pressure induced mechanical oscillation of an optical microcavity
- A picogram and nanometer scale photonic crystal opto-mechanical cavity
- Cavity optomechanical transduction sensing of single molecules
- A 1D Optomechanical crystal with a complete phononic band gap
- High frequency nano-optomechanical disk resonators in liquids
- Strong optomechanical interactions in a sliced photonic crystal nanobeam
- Viscous damping of nanobeam resonators: humidity, thermal noise and the paddling effect
- Optical and mechanical mode tuning in an optomechanical crystal with light-induced thermal effects