California Institute of Technology

University of Rochester

Tim D Blasius

Oskar Jon Painter

Martin Winger

Qiang Lin

Alexander Grey Krause

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).

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Pasadena, CA, United States of America

Tim D Blasius