Novel Piston Motion Opto-Mechanical Sensor for Nanoscale Motion Detection

To increase the sensitivity of a micromechanical structure to temperature (in thermal sensing) and surface stress (in biochemical sensing) change, a novel Flip-Over-Bimorph (FOB) structure has been proposed. For detecting physically induced nanoscale motion, the operation of a piston motion optomechanical sensor using the FOB design has been demonstrated. The piston motion opto-mechanical sensor has a symmetric structure such that the structural deflection is converted into a linear displacement of a reflecting surface, which is used for optical interferometry. Through the optical measurement setup using the He-Ne laser and CCD, light intensity changes for chip temperature changes are measured, and the thermo-mechanical sensitivity of the designed sensor is 180 nm/K.Copyright © 2005 by ASME