Thermoplasmonic Membrane-Based Infrared Detector

In this letter, we experimentally demonstrate, by integrating plasmonic nanoantennas, that membrane-based micromechanical resonators can become infrared (IR) active. The photo-thermomechanical effect induced by nanoantennas enables actuation of mechanical structures. Using this hybrid nanoantenna coupled mechanical device as a thermal IR detector, we achieved a current responsivity of 12 mA/W corresponding to a displacement responsivity of 98.7 μm/W and a thermal time constant of 5.7 ms at a wavelength of 6 μm. This approach can be extended to any mechanical resonator for new optomechanical sensing modalities.