Ferromagnetic Resonance Assisted Optomechanical Magnetometer

The resonant enhancement of mechanical and optical interaction in optomechanical cavities enables their use as extremely sensitive displacement and force detectors. In this Letter, we demonstrate a hybrid magnetometer that exploits the coupling between the resonant excitation of spin waves in a ferromagnetic insulator and the resonant excitation of the breathing mechanical modes of a glass microsphere deposited on top. The interaction is mediated by magnetostriction in the ferromagnetic material and the consequent mechanical driving of the microsphere. The magnetometer response thus relies on the spectral overlap between the ferromagnetic resonance and the mechanical modes of the sphere, leading to a peak sensitivity of 850 pT Hz−1/2 at 206 MHz when the overlap is maximized. By externally tuning the ferromagnetic resonance frequency with a static magnetic field, we demonstrate sensitivity values at resonance around a few nT Hz−1/2 up to the gigahertz range. Our results show that our hybrid system can be used to build a high-speed sensor of oscillating magnetic fields.