Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate operation of a laterally deformable optical nanoelectromechanical system grating transducer. The device is fabricated in amorphous diamond with standard lithographic techniques. For small changes in the spacing of the subwavelength grating elements, lossy propagating resonant modes in the plane of the grating cause a large change in the optical reflection amplitude. An in-plane motion detection sensitivity of $160 \mathrm{fm}/\sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}}$ was measured, exceeding that of any other optical microelectromechanical system transducer to our knowledge. Calculations predict that this sensitivity could be improved to better than $40 \mathrm{fm}/\sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}}$ in future designs. In addition to having applications in the field of inertial sensors, this device could also be used as an optical modulator.

© 2004 Optical Society of America

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