{"id":1723,"date":"2025-11-11T11:56:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T01:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qo.lab.uq.edu.au\/?p=1723"},"modified":"2026-02-20T13:46:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T03:46:21","slug":"silicon-photonic-optomechanical-magnetometer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qo.lab.uq.edu.au\/?p=1723","title":{"rendered":"Paper: Silicon-photonic optomechanical magnetometer"},"content":{"rendered":"
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11 Nov 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Abstract<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Optomechanical sensors enable exquisitely sensitive force measurements, with emerging applications across quantum technologies, standards, fundamental science, and engineering. Magnetometry is among the most promising applications, where chip-scale optomechanical sensors offer high sensitivity without the cryogenics or magnetic shielding required by competing technologies. However, lack of compatibility with integrated photonics and electronics has posed a major barrier. Here we introduce silicon-on-insulator optomechanical magnetometers to address this barrier. A new post-release lithography process enables high-quality metallisation of released mechanical structures, overcoming the incompatibility between silicon-on-insulator fabrication and functional magnetic films. This allows us to employ photonic-crystal cavities that enhance motion-to-optical signal transduction by over an order of magnitude. The resulting devices achieve magnetic field sensitivity of 800 pT Hz^-1\/2, three orders of magnitude beyond previous waveguide-integrated designs. The advances we report provide a path towards high-performance, room temperature and chip-integrated magnetometers for applications ranging from biomedical imaging and navigation to resource exploration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fernando Gottardo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Benjamin Carey<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Nathaniel Bawden<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Glen Harris<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Hamish Greenall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Erick Romero<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Douglas Bulla<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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James Bennett<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Scott Foster<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Warwick Bowen<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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11 Nov 2025 Abstract Optomechanical sensors enable exquisitely sensitive force measurements, with emerging applications across quantum technologies, standards, fundamental science, and engineering. Magnetometry is among the most promising applications, where chip-scale optomechanical sensors offer high sensitivity without the cryogenics or magnetic shielding required by competing technologies. However, lack of compatibility with integrated photonics and electronics […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":1724,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/qo.lab.uq.edu.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/magnetometer_feat-scaled.png","author_info":{"display_name":false,"author_link":"https:\/\/qo.lab.uq.edu.au\/?author=11"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/qo.lab.uq.edu.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/magnetometer_feat-scaled.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qo.lab.uq.edu.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qo.lab.uq.edu.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qo.lab.uq.edu.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qo.lab.uq.edu.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qo.lab.uq.edu.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1723"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/qo.lab.uq.edu.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1813,"href":"https:\/\/qo.lab.uq.edu.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1723\/revisions\/1813"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qo.lab.uq.edu.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qo.lab.uq.edu.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qo.lab.uq.edu.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qo.lab.uq.edu.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}