Abstract
Nanoelectromechanical systems1,2 based on cantilevers have consistently set records for sensitivity in measurements of displacement3, force4 and mass3,5,6 over the past decade. Continued progress will require the integration of efficient transduction on a chip so that nanoelectromechanical systems may be operated at higher speeds and sensitivities. Conventional electrical schemes have limited bandwidth7,8, and although optical methods9,10 are fast, they are subject to the diffraction limit. Here, we demonstrate the integration of nanocantilevers on a silicon photonic platform with a non-interferometric transduction scheme that avoids the diffraction limit by making use of near-field effects in optomechanical interactions11. The use of a non-interferometric method means that a coherent light source is not required, making the monolithic integration of optomechanical systems with on-chip light sources feasible. We further demonstrate optomechanical multiplexing of an array of ten nanocantilevers with a displacement sensitivity of 40 fm Hz−1/2.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$259.00 per year
only $21.58 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Roukes, M. Nanoelectromechanical systems face the future. Phys. World 14, 25–31 (February 2001).
Craighead, H. G. Nanoelectromechanical systems. Science 290, 1532–1535 (2000).
Li, M., Tang, H. X. & Roukes, M. L. Ultra-sensitive NEMS-based cantilevers for sensing, scanned probe and very high-frequency applications. Nature Nanotech. 2, 114–120 (2007).
Rugar, D., Budakian, R., Mamin, H. J. & Chui, B. W. Single spin detection by magnetic resonance force microscopy. Nature 430, 329–332 (2004).
Ilic, B. et al. Attogram detection using nanoelectromechanical oscillators. J. Appl. Phys. 95, 3694–3703 (2004).
Yang, Y. T., Callegari, C., Feng, X. L., Ekinci, K. L. & Roukes, M. L. Zeptogram-scale nanomechanical mass sensing. Nano Lett. 6, 583–586 (2006).
Huang, X. M. H., Zorman, C. A., Mehregany, M. & Roukes, M. L. Nanodevice motion at microwave frequencies. Nature 421, 496 (2003).
Truitt, P. A., Hertzberg, J. B., Huang, C. C., Ekinci, K. L. & Schwab, K. C. Efficient and sensitive capacitive readout of nanomechanical resonator arrays. Nano Lett. 7, 120–126 (2007).
Carr, D. W., Evoy, S., Sekaric, L., Craighead, H. G. & Parpia, J. M. Measurement of mechanical resonance and losses in nanometer scale silicon wires. Appl. Phys. Lett. 75, 920–922 (1999).
Azak, N. O. et al. Nanomechanical displacement detection using fiber-optic interferometry. Appl. Phys. Lett. 91, 093112 (2007).
Li, M. et al. Harnessing optical forces in integrated photonic circuits. Nature 456, 480–484 (2008).
Vlasov, Y. A. & McNab, S. J. Losses in single-mode silicon-on-insulator strip waveguides and bends. Opt. Express 12, 1622–1631 (2004).
Xu, Q. F., Schmidt, B., Pradhan, S. & Lipson, M. Micrometre-scale silicon electro-optic modulator. Nature 435, 325–327 (2005).
Rong, H. et al. A continuous-wave Raman silicon laser. Nature 433, 725–728 (2005).
Kang, Y. et al. Monolithic germanium/silicon avalanche photodiodes with 340 GHz gain–bandwidth product. Nature Photon. 3, 59–63 (2009).
Pruessner, M. W. et al. End-coupled optical waveguide MEMS devices in the indium phosphide material system. J. Micromech. Microeng. 16, 832–842 (2006).
Maria, N., Dan, A. Z., Montserrat, C., Jorg, H. & Anja, B. Integrated optical readout for miniaturization of cantilever-based sensor system. Appl. Phys. Lett. 91, 103512 (2007).
Zinoviev, K., Dominguez, C., Plaza, J. A., Busto, V. J. C. & Lechuga, L. M. A novel optical waveguide microcantilever sensor for the detection of nanomechanical forces. J. Lightwave Technol. 24, 2132–2138 (2006).
De Vlaminck, I. et al. Detection of nanomechanical motion by evanescent light wave coupling. Appl. Phys. Lett. 90, 233116 (2007).
Thompson, J. D. et al. Strong dispersive coupling of a high-finesse cavity to a micromechanical membrane. Nature 452, 72–75 (2008).
Walters, D. A. et al. Short cantilevers for atomic force microscopy. Rev. Sci. Instrum. 67, 3583–3590 (1996).
Zhang, J. et al. Rapid and label-free nanomechanical detection of biomarker transcripts in human RNA. Nature Nanotech. 1, 214–220 (2006).
Ndieyira, J. W. et al. Nanomechanical detection of antibiotic mucopeptide binding in a model for superbug drug resistance. Nature Nanotech. 3, 691–696 (2008).
Vlasov, Y., Green, W. M. J. & Xia, F. High-throughput silicon nanophotonic wavelength-insensitive switch for on-chip optical networks. Nature Photon. 2, 242–246 (2008).
Rugar, D., Mamin, H. J. & Guethner, P. Improved fiber-optic interferometer for atomic force microscopy. Appl. Phys. Lett. 55, 2588–2590 (1989).
Acknowledgements
H.X.T. acknowledges a career award from National Science Foundation (NSF). W.H.P.P. acknowledges support from the Alexander-von-Humboldt postdoctoral fellowship programmes. The authors thank M. Hochberg and T. Baehr-Jones for help with the design of the grating couplers. The devices were fabricated at Yale Center for Microelectronic Materials and Structures and the NSF sponsored Cornell Nanoscale Facility. Part of the funding was provided by a seed grant offered by Yale Institute for Nanoscience and Quantum Information.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Li, M., Pernice, W. & Tang, H. Broadband all-photonic transduction of nanocantilevers. Nature Nanotech 4, 377–382 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2009.92
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2009.92
This article is cited by
-
Integrated nano-optomechanical displacement sensor with ultrawide optical bandwidth
Nature Communications (2020)
-
Silicon waveguide cantilever displacement sensor for potential application for on-chip high speed AFM
Frontiers of Optoelectronics (2018)
-
Enhancing Optical Forces in InP-Based Waveguides
Scientific Reports (2017)
-
A low-frequency chip-scale optomechanical oscillator with 58 kHz mechanical stiffening and more than 100th-order stable harmonics
Scientific Reports (2017)
-
High-speed multiple-mode mass-sensing resolves dynamic nanoscale mass distributions
Nature Communications (2015)