Optically-trapped microspheres are high-bandwidth acoustic transducers

Abstract

We report on the use of an optically-trapped microsphere as an acoustic transducer. A model for the hydrodynamic coupling between the microsphere and the surrounding acoustic fluid flow is combined with thermo-mechanical calibration of the microsphere's position detection to enable quantitative acoustic measurements. We describe our technique in detail, including the self-noise, sensitivity, and minimum detectable signals, using a model appropriate for both liquid and gas environments. We then test our approach in an air-based experiment and compare our measurements with two state-of-the-art commercially-available acoustic sensors. Piezoelectrically-driven bursts of pure tones and laser ablation provide two classes of test sounds. We find accurate measurements with a bandwidth of 1 MHz are possible using our technique, improving by several orders of magnitude the bandwidth of previous flow measurements based on optically-trapped microspheres.