Collective-motion-enhanced acceleration sensing via an optically levitated microsphere array

Abstract

Optically levitated microspheres are an excellent candidate for force and acceleration sensing. Here, we propose an acceleration sensing protocol based on an optically levitated microsphere array (MSA). The system consists of an $N$-microsphere array levitated in a driven optical cavity via holographic optical tweezers. By positioning the microspheres suitably relative to the cavity, only one of the collective modes of the MSA is coupled to the cavity mode. The optomechanical interaction encodes the information of acceleration acting on the MSA onto the intracavity photons, which can then be detected directly at the output of the cavity. The optically levitated MSA forms an effective large mass-distributed particle, which not only circumvents the problem of levitating a large mass microsphere but also results in a significant improvement of sensitivity. Compared with the traditional single-microsphere measurement scheme, our method presents an improvement in sensitivity by a factor of $\sqrt{N}$.