A photonic-integrated optomechanical mid-infrared detector

Abstract

Tracking the resonance frequency of a mechanical oscillator is the basis of atomic force microscopy, mass sensing and thermometry. Nanomechanical thermal detectors exploit this principle to sense absorbed radiation, most effectively with tensile-stressed resonators, whose tension converts thermal expansion into a large frequency shift and dilutes dissipation. Approaching their fundamental sensitivity limit, however, has required free-space or fibre-coupled interferometers, hindering compact deployment and scaling to arrays. Here we remove this bottleneck by monolithically integrating a high-Q nanomechanical resonator with a silicon nitride photonic integrated circuit. A tensile-stressed silicon nitride trampoline with an impedance-matched platinum absorber is dispersively coupled to a photonic integrated microresonator beneath it. At room temperature and with microwatt-level optical power, the detector reaches a noise-equivalent power of 3.4 pW/√(Hz) for broadband thermal radiation (3-12 μm), referred to incident power. Referred to absorbed power, this is within a factor of 1.5 of its fundamental thermal fluctuation limit. Using our detector in a state-of-the-art commercial Fourier-transform infrared spectrometer, we resolve the vibrational fingerprint of a polymer film across 2-20 μm and reach the precision of the built-in pyroelectric detector with about an order of magnitude lower incident power. This architecture opens a route to multiplexed optomechanical focal-plane arrays.

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Cite

BibTeX RIS

BibTeX

@misc{arregui2026photonicintegrated,
  title = {{A photonic-integrated optomechanical mid-infrared detector}},
  author = {Guillermo Arregui and Amirali Arabmoheghi and Alessio Zicoschi and Xinru Ji and Scott E. Kenning and Marco Golino and Shivaprasad U. Hulyal and Yi Xia and Sunil A. Bhave and Tobias J. Kippenberg},
  howpublished = {arXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.37771},
  eprint = {2610.37771},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.37771},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}

RIS

TY  - UNPB
TI  - A photonic-integrated optomechanical mid-infrared detector
AU  - Guillermo Arregui
AU  - Amirali Arabmoheghi
AU  - Alessio Zicoschi
AU  - Xinru Ji
AU  - Scott E. Kenning
AU  - Marco Golino
AU  - Shivaprasad U. Hulyal
AU  - Yi Xia
AU  - Sunil A. Bhave
AU  - Tobias J. Kippenberg
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/27
PB  - arXiv
DO  - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.37771
UR  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.37771
AB  - Tracking the resonance frequency of a mechanical oscillator is the basis of atomic force microscopy, mass sensing and thermometry. Nanomechanical thermal detectors exploit this principle to sense absorbed radiation, most effectively with tensile-stressed resonators, whose tension converts thermal expansion into a large frequency shift and dilutes dissipation. Approaching their fundamental sensitivity limit, however, has required free-space or fibre-coupled interferometers, hindering compact deployment and scaling to arrays. Here we remove this bottleneck by monolithically integrating a high-Q nanomechanical resonator with a silicon nitride photonic integrated circuit. A tensile-stressed silicon nitride trampoline with an impedance-matched platinum absorber is dispersively coupled to a photonic integrated microresonator beneath it. At room temperature and with microwatt-level optical power, the detector reaches a noise-equivalent power of 3.4 pW/√(Hz) for broadband thermal radiation (3-12 μm), referred to incident power. Referred to absorbed power, this is within a factor of 1.5 of its fundamental thermal fluctuation limit. Using our detector in a state-of-the-art commercial Fourier-transform infrared spectrometer, we resolve the vibrational fingerprint of a polymer film across 2-20 μm and reach the precision of the built-in pyroelectric detector with about an order of magnitude lower incident power. This architecture opens a route to multiplexed optomechanical focal-plane arrays.
ER  -

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