Cavity piezooptomechanics: piezoelectrically excited, optically transduced optomechanical resonators

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a monolithic aluminum nitride optomechanical resonator where mechanical vibrations are electrically excited via piezoelectricity and optically read out, achieving multi-frequency operation.

Contribution

It introduces a novel integrated AlN resonator with piezoelectric actuation and optical transduction, eliminating resonator-to-electrode loss and enabling multi-frequency mechanical excitation.

Findings

Mechanical motion observed at multiple frequencies (47.3 MHz, 1.04 GHz, 3.12 GHz)

Resonator excited via piezoelectric force with high-Q optical readout

Development of an equivalent circuit model for resonance spectrum

Abstract

We present a monolithic integrated aluminum nitride (AlN) optomechanical resonator in which the mechanical motion is actuated by piezoelectric force and the displacement is transduced by a high-Q optical cavity. The AlN optomechanical resonator is excited from a radio-frequency electrode via a small air gap to eliminate resonator-to-electrode loss. We observe the electrically excited mechanical motion at 47.3 MHz, 1.04 GHz, and 3.12 GHz, corresponding to the 1st, 2nd, and 4th radial-contour mode of the wheel resonator respectively. An equivalent circuit model is developed to describe the observed Fano-like resonance spectrum.