English

Sail membranes for optomechanical accelerometry

Quantum Physics 2026-07-15 v1 Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics Applied Physics Instrumentation and Detectors Optics

Abstract

Strained membrane resonators have emerged as a promising platform for optomechanical accelerometry; however, the desired combination of low frequency and high QQ-mass product requires a rethinking of their dissipation dilution engineering. Applying Bayesian optimization to a Si3_3N4_4 membrane, we discover a class of sail-like trampoline resonators in which the frequency is decreased by an order of magnitude while preserving the QQ-mass product. We demonstrate centimeter-scale sails with kHz frequencies, Q107Q\sim10^7 and Q×massQ\times\text{mass}\sim 10 g. Vertically integrating a 7 kHz device with a nanoribbon, we realize a monolithic cavity optomechanical accelerometer with a room temperature thermal noise of 40  ng0/Hz40\;\text{n}g_0/\sqrt{\text{Hz}}, sufficient to resolve μg0/Hz\mu g_0/\sqrt{\text{Hz}} ambient vibration over a bandwidth of 4 kHz with a displacement imprecision of 1014  m/Hz10^{-14}\;\text{m}/\sqrt{\text{Hz}}. Cryogenic arrays of sail membranes may be attractive for new physics searches and distributed quantum sensing experiments.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.14089,
  title  = {Sail membranes for optomechanical accelerometry},
  author = {Atkin D. Hyatt and Mitul Dey Chowdhury and Mahir Chowdhury and Mohamed J. Ahamed and Dalziel J. Wilson},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.14089},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

6 pages, 4 figures