Exceptional point enhances sensitivity of optomechanical mass sensors (original) (raw)

2020, Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)

We propose an ecient optomechanical mass sensor operating at exceptional points (EPs), nonhermitian degeneracies where eigenvalues of a system and their corresponding eigenvectors simultaneously coalesce. The benchmark system consists of two optomechanical cavities (OMCs) that are mechanically coupled, where we engineer mechanical gain (loss) by driving the cavity with a blue (red) detuned laser. The system features EP at the gain and loss balance, where any perturbation induces a frequency splitting that scales as the square-root of the perturbation strength, resulting in a giant sensitivity factor enhancement compared to the conventional optomechanical sensors. For nonidentical mechanical resonators, quadratic optomechanical coupling is used to tune the mismatch frequency in order to get closer to the EP, extending the eciency of our sensing scheme to mismatched resonators. This work paves the way towards new levels of sensitivity for optomechanical sensors, which could nd applications in many other elds including nanoparticles detection, precision measurement, and quantum metrology. I.