# Exceptional point enhances sensitivity of optomechanical mass sensors

## TL;DR

This paper introduces an optomechanical mass sensor operating at exceptional points (EPs) that significantly enhances sensitivity by leveraging non-Hermitian degeneracies, enabling detection of tiny perturbations with greater precision.

## Contribution

The work demonstrates a novel sensor design utilizing EPs in coupled optomechanical cavities, achieving amplified sensitivity through eigenvalue coalescence and quadratic coupling for mismatched resonators.

## Key findings

- Sensitivity scales with the square root of perturbation strength at EPs
- Quadratic coupling extends sensing to mismatched resonators
- System achieves giant sensitivity enhancement over conventional sensors

## Abstract

We propose an efficient optomechanical mass sensor operating at exceptional points (EPs), non-hermitian 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 non-degenerated mechanical resonators, quadratic optomechanical coupling is used to tune the mismatch frequency in order to get closer to the EP, extending the efficiency of our sensing scheme to mismatched resonators. This work paves the way towards new levels of sensitivity for optomechanical sensors, which could find applications in many other fields including nanoparticles detection, precision measurement, and quantum metrology.