Integrated cavity optomechanical sensors for atomic force microscopy

We present the development of cavity optomechanical sensors that integrate nanoscale cantilevers for mechanical transduction with optical resonators used for motional readout. The cantilever stiffness was varied over 4 orders of magnitude (from ≈0.01 N/m to ≈290 N/m) by simply modifications to the device geometry. The observed displacement sensitivity (fm/(Hz)^(1/2)), near-field readout scheme, and integrated nature suggest that the sensors are promising for use in stable, high-bandwidth AFM applications.