Beating thermal noise in a dynamic signal measurement by a nanofabricated cavity optomechanical sensor

• DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adf7595
• Publication Date: 2023-03-15T17:58:42Z
• Authors: Mingkang Wang; Diego J. Perez-Mo...; Georg Ramer; Georges Pavlidis; Jeffrey J. Schwartz; Liya Yu; Robert Ilic; Andrea Centrone; Vladimir A. Aksyuk
• Keywords: Thermal fluctuations

Thermal fluctuations often impose both fundamental and practical measurement limits on high-performance sensors, motivating the development of techniques that bypass limitations imposed by thermal noise outside cryogenic environments. Here, we theoretically propose experimentally demonstrate a method reduces effective transducer temperature improves precision dynamic impulse response signal. noise-limited, integrated cavity optomechanical atomic force microscopy probes are used in photothermal-induced resonance to an reduction factor ≈25, i.e., from room down as low ≈12 K, without cryogens. The experimental throughput >2×, approaching theoretical limit ≈3.5× improvement for our conditions. general applicability this measurements leveraging noise-limited harmonic transducers will have broad impact across variety platforms scientific fields.