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Title: Ultrasensitive measurement of microcantilever displacement below the shot-noise limit

Journal Article · · Optica
 [1];  [1]
  1. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

The displacement of micro-electro-mechanical-systems (MEMs) cantilevers is used to measure a variety of phe- nomena in devices ranging from force microscopes for single spin detection[1] to biochemical sensors[2] to un- cooled thermal imaging systems[3]. The displacement readout is often performed optically with segmented de- tectors or interference measurements. Until recently, var- ious noise sources have limited the minimum detectable displacement in MEMs systems, but it is now possible to minimize all other sources[4] so that the noise level of the coherent light eld, called the shot noise limit (SNL), becomes the dominant source. Light sources dis- playing quantum-enhanced statistics below this limit are available[5, 6], with applications in gravitational wave astronomy[7] and bioimaging[8], but direct displacement measurements of MEMS cantilevers below the SNL have been impossible until now. Here, we demonstrate the rst direct measurement of a MEMs cantilever displace- ment with sub-SNL sensitivity, thus enabling ultratrace sensing, imaging, and microscopy applications. By com- bining multi-spatial-mode quantum light sources with a simple dierential measurement, we show that sub-SNL MEMs displacement sensitivity is highly accessible com- pared to previous eorts that measured the displacement of macroscopic mirrors with very distinct spatial struc- tures crafted with multiple optical parametric ampliers and locking loops[9]. We apply this technique to a com- mercially available microcantilever in order to detect dis- placements 60% below the SNL at frequencies where the microcantilever is shot-noise-limited. These results sup- port a new class of quantum MEMS sensor whose ulti- mate signal to noise ratio is determined by the correla- tions possible in quantum optics systems.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725
OSTI ID:
1185444
Journal Information:
Optica, Vol. 2, Issue 5; ISSN 2334-2536
Publisher:
Optical Society of AmericaCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 128 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (30)

Beam Focusing and Reduction of Quantum Uncertainty in Width at the Few-Photon Level via Multi-Spatial-Mode Squeezing journal February 2019
Femtometer displacement resolution with phase-insensitive Doppler sensing journal January 2019
Compact sub-kilohertz low-frequency quantum light source based on four-wave mixing in cesium vapor journal January 2018
Quantum beam splitter for orbital angular momentum of light: quantum correlation by four-wave mixing operated in a nonamplifying regime journal January 2019
Experimental realization of a feedback optical parametric amplifier with four-wave mixing journal April 2018
Spatial squeezing in bright twin beams generated with four-wave mixing: Constraints on characterization with an electron-multiplying charge-coupled-device camera journal December 2019
Single-step fabrication of scalable multimode quantum resources using four-wave mixing with a spatially structured pump journal May 2017
Applications of the Fokker-Planck equation in circuit quantum electrodynamics journal October 2016
Realization of the first sub-shot-noise wide field microscope journal January 2017
Quantum enhanced imaging of nonuniform refractive profiles journal December 2019
Quantum enhanced optomechanical magnetometry journal January 2018
Experimental generation of quadruple quantum-correlated beams from hot rubidium vapor by cascaded four-wave mixing using spatial multiplexing journal February 2017
Enhanced detection of a low-frequency signal by using broad squeezed light and a bichromatic local oscillator journal August 2017
Four-wave mixing in a non-degenerate four-level diamond configuration in the hyperfine Paschen–Back regime journal September 2017
Interferometric Evanescent Wave Excitation of a Nanoantenna for Ultrasensitive Displacement and Phase Metrology journal November 2018
Optically read Coriolis vibratory gyroscope based on a silicon tuning fork journal October 2019
Twin-beam-enhanced displacement measurement of a membrane in a cavity journal December 2019
Two-beam pumped cascaded four-wave-mixing process for producing multiple-beam quantum correlation journal April 2018
Experimental implementation of a nonlinear beamsplitter based on a phase-sensitive parametric amplifier journal March 2016
A broadband fiber-optic nonlinear interferometer journal August 2018
Experimental characterization of pairwise correlations from triple quantum correlated beams generated by cascaded four-wave mixing processes journal January 2018
Quantum imaging with sub-Poissonian light: challenges and perspectives in optical metrology journal January 2019
Optimization of the squeezing factor by temperature-dependent phase shift compensation in a doubly resonant optical parametric oscillator journal October 2019
Quantum imaging with sub-Poissonian light: challenges and perspectives in optical metrology text January 2020
Quantum imaging with sub-Poissonian light: challenges and perspectives in optical metrology text January 2020
Four-wave mixing in a non-degenerate four-level diamond configuration in the hyperfine Paschen-Back regime text January 2017
Quantum enhanced optomechanical magnetometry text January 2018
Beam focusing and reduction of quantum uncertainty in width at the few-photon level via multi-spatial-mode squeezing text January 2018
Twin-beam-enhanced displacement measurement of a membrane in a cavity text January 2019
Quantum Enhanced Imaging of Non-Uniform Refractive Profiles text January 2019

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