A nano-Scaled force sensor based on a photonic crystal nanocavity resonator and a microcantilever

Photonic crystal, which is an attractive optical structure for controlling and manipulating the flow of light, has been widely used to design mechanical sensors inmicroelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS). In this work, a novel two dimensional nano-scaled force sensor based on silicon photonic crystal, in which a nanocavity is embedded in an L-shaped microcantilever, is developed and studied numerically. The relationship between the force and the output wavelength is determined using finite element method (FED) and finite difference time-domain (FDTD) method. As we found, the range of the force sensor both in X and Y directions is around 01 μN. And the resolutions of sensor for each component force in X and Y directions are 1.891 nm/μN and 1.418 nm/μN, respectively, with a 30 μm long and 15 μm wide microcantilever. Thus, the novel photonic crystal sensor shows a promising linear characteristic as a two dimensional optical nanomechanical sensor.