Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Applied physics

Optical sensing gets exceptional

Nature volume 548, pages 161–162 (2017)Cite this article

Subjects

Conventional sensors based on devices called optical resonators have fundamentally limited sensitivity. Careful engineering has been used to overcome this constraint, opening the door to ultraprecise sensing. See Letters p.187 & p.192

Light-confining structures called optical resonators make ideal sensors for a range of phenomena, including mechanical vibrations and changes in temperature, as well as for nanoparticles and biomolecules such as viruses and DNA1. However, the performance of conventional sensors based on optical resonators is fundamentally limited — halving the strength of the perturbation being sensed halves the ability of the device to sense it. On pages 187 and 192, respectively, Hodaei et al.2 and Chen et al.3 demonstrate a mechanism that avoids this limitation, paving the way for sensors that have unprecedented sensitivity to tiny changes in their environments.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Figure 1: Improving the sensitivity of optical-resonator sensors.

Notes

  1. See all news & views

References

  1. Vollmer, F. & Arnold, S. Nature Methods 5, 591–596 (2008).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Hodaei, H. et al. Nature 548, 187–191 (2017).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Chen, W., Özdemir, Ş. K., Zhao, G. & Yang, L. Nature 548, 192–196 (2017).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Wiersig, J. Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 203901 (2014).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  5. Bender, C. M. & Boettcher, S. Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 5243–5246 (1998).

    Article  ADS  MathSciNet  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Rüter, C. E. et al. Nature Phys. 6, 192–195 (2010).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  7. Yablonovitch, E. Sci. Am. 285, 46–55 (December 2001).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Department of Physics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, 16802, Pennsylvania, USA

    Mikael C. Rechtsman

Authors
  1. Mikael C. Rechtsman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mikael C. Rechtsman.

Related links

Related links

Related links in Nature Research

Optical physics: A larger quantum alphabet

Optical physics: One ring to multiplex them all

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Rechtsman, M. Optical sensing gets exceptional. Nature 548, 161–162 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/548161a

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/548161a

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing