A low-frequency chip-scale optomechanical oscillator with 58 kHz mechanical stiffening and more than 100(th)-order stable harmonics

For the sensitive high-resolution force- and field-sensing applications, the large-mass microelectromechanical system (MEMS) and optomechanical cavity have been proposed to realize the sub-aN/Hz(1/2) resolution levels. In view of the optomechanical cavity-based force- and field-sensors, the optomechanical coupling is the key parameter for achieving high sensitivity and resolution. Here we demonstrate a chip-scale optomechanical cavity with large mass which operates at ≈77.7 kHz fundamental mode and intrinsically exhibiting large optomechanical coupling of 44 GHz/nm or more, for both optical resonance modes. The mechanical stiffening range of ≈58 kHz and a more than 100(th)-order harmonics are obtained, with which the free-running frequency instability is lower than 10(−6) at 100 ms integration time. Such results can be applied to further improve the sensing performance of the optomechanical inspired chip-scale sensors.