We fabricate and characterize a microscale silicon electro-opto-mechanical
system whose mechanical motion is coupled capacitively to an electrical circuit
and optically via radiation pressure to a photonic crystal cavity. To achieve
large electromechanical interaction strength, we implement an inverse shadow
mask fabrication scheme which obtains capacitor gaps as small as 30 nm while
maintaining a silicon surface quality necessary for minimizing optical loss.
Using the sensitive optical read-out of the photonic crystal cavity, we
characterize the linear and nonlinear capacitive coupling to the fundamental 63
MHz in-plane flexural motion of the structure, showing that the large
electromechanical coupling in such devices may be suitable for realizing
efficient microwave-to-optical signal conversion.Comment: 8 papers, 4 figure
