California Institute of Technology

University of Rochester

Alexander Grey Krause

Oskar Jon Painter

Martin Winger

Qiang Lin

Amir Safavi-Naeini

Tim D Blasius

Thiago Alegre

Timothy Dobson Blasius

Technologies are generally described for operating and manufacturing optomechanical accelerometers. In some examples, an optomechanical accelerometer device is described that uses a cavity resonant displacement sensor based on a zipper photonic crystal nano-cavity to measure the displacement of an integrated test mass generated by acceleration applied to the chip. The cavity-resonant sensor may be fully integrated on-chip and exhibit an enhanced displacement resolution due to its strong optomechanical coupling. The accelerometer structure may be fabricated in a silicon nitride thin film and constitute a rectangular test mass flexibly suspended on high aspect ratio inorganic nitride nano-tethers under high tensile stress. By increasing the mechanical Q-factors through adjustment of tether width and tether length, the noise-equivalent acceleration (NEA) may be reduced, while maintaining a large operation bandwidth. The mechanical Q-factor may be improved with thinner (e.g., &#x3c;1 micron) and longer tethers (e.g., 10-560 microns).

Optomechanical accelerometer

The present disclosure describes an integrated opto-mechanical and electro-mechanical system. The opto-mechanical and electro-mechanical system can be made of photonic crystals configured to move based on electrical voltages and/or back action effects from electromagnetic waves, thus changing the resonance of the system.

Systems and methods for tuning a cavity

Growing community of inventors

Pasadena, CA, United States of America

Alexander Grey Krause