Progress of optomechanical micro/nano sensors: a review

Abstract

Optomechanical sensing based on the coupling between mechanical motions and optical resonances has attracted huge interest in sensor applications due to its small footprint, high sensitivity, low detection limit, and electromagnetic immunity. Optomechanical sensors that detect from mechanical motion at µm scale to molecular vibration at nm scale have found various applications such as force, inertia, acoustic, chemical, and thermal sensing, etc. In this review, we provide an overview of the recent progress of optomechanical sensors. Three development fields of optomechanical sensors are reviewed, which are passive optomechanical sensors, electro-optomechanical sensing platforms, and molecular vibration sensing schemes. The sensor configurations, applications, and integrations are described. In the end, we also provide our perspectives on the future development directions of optomechanical sensors.

Keywords

• optomechanical sensors
• physical sensing
• chemical sensing
• molecular vibration
• photothermal effect