Radiation pressure in finite Fabry-P\'erot cavities

Abstract

We study the effect of finite size and misalignment on a fundamental optomechanical setup: a Fabry-P\'erot cavity with one fixed and one moveable mirror. We describe in detail light confinement under these real world imperfections and compare the behaviour of the intracavity and output fields to the well-known ideal case. In particular, we show that it is possible to trace the motion of the movable mirror itself by measuring intensity changes in the output field even in the presence of fabrication shortcomings and thermal noise. Our result might be relevant to the transition from high precision research experiments to everyday commercial applications of optomechanics; such as high-precission stepmotor or actuator positioning.