title: Optomechanical nonlinearity enhanced optical sensors.
abstract: We propose and investigate an ultra-sensitive optical sensor system based on optomechanically induced nonlinear effects in high-Q optical resonators. In both dispersive and dissipative optomechanical systems, a positive feedback is formed between the optical resonance frequency and the mechanical displacement, which results in nonlinear transmission spectra different from a Lorentzian profile. Given the same resonator design, the optomechanical nonlinearity can increase the overall sensitivity by at least two orders of magnitude. Further improvement is possible by employing the phase sensitive detection. For the stable operation of the proposed sensor, we also analyze the requirement on the input power and the optomechanical coupling rate to overcome the thermal-optically induced frequency shift.
authors.forename: Jiahua
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.forename: Chenguang
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Lin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhu