| dc.description.abstract | Low-frequency acceleration measurements are a vital component to many technologies and fields of science. High-precision, low-frequency accelerometers are used for inertial navigation, seismology, geophysics, satellite geodesy missions, gravitational wave detectors and more. How-ever, many such devices are heavy, have large test masses, and are not easily portable, which limit the applications in which they can be deployed.
This dissertation covers the development of an optomechanical low-frequency accelerometer which couples monolithic fused silica mechanical resonators with compact high-precision optical readout systems. Fused silica has extremely low losses, which allows us to create highly sensitive devices with comparatively small test masses. Accelerometers that use such resonators are consequently more compact, lightweight, and portable.
These resonators are designed and simulated using finite element analysis and models based on first principles and detailed experimentation. Furthermore, prototype optomechanical accelerometers have been developed and tested in the laboratory, demonstrating the capability to detect seismic noise down to 1 mHz. These experimental studies have been conducted together with a commercial seismometer for comparison purposes. Finally, we present several fused silica resonator topologies developed for other inertial sensing applications. | |
