Sail membranes for optomechanical accelerometry

Strained membrane resonators have emerged as a promising platform for optomechanical accelerometry; however, the desired combination of low frequency and high $Q$-mass product requires a rethinking of their dissipation dilution engineering.

Applying Bayesian optimization to a Si$_3$N$_4$ membrane, we discover a class of sail-like trampoline resonators in which the frequency is decreased by an order of magnitude while preserving the $Q$-mass product.

We demonstrate centimeter-scale sails with kHz frequencies, $Q\sim10^7$ and $Q\times\text{mass}\sim$ 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 $40\;\text{n}g_0/\sqrt{\text{Hz}}$, sufficient to resolve $\mu g_0/\sqrt{\text{Hz}}$ ambient vibration over a bandwidth of 4 kHz with a displacement imprecision of $10^{-14}\;\text{m}/\sqrt{\text{Hz}}$.

Cryogenic arrays of sail membranes may be attractive for new physics searches and distributed quantum sensing experiments.