Integrated Resonant Optical Readout Applicable to Large Arrays of MEMS Beams

A recent report by the authors presented theoretical studies of a new method of interrogation of the position of arrays of micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) cantilever and doubly clamped beams. This letter represents the first experimental evidence of the performance of such an interrogation technique, confirming the modelling and showing noise performance close to the theoretical predictions. Such a technique will be useful in applications such as MEMS-based chemical sensing. Our experimental results show the potential to realize a shot-noise limited component of minimum detectable deflection of 16
${\rm fm}/\sqrt{\rm Hz}$
.