New design of the cantilevers for radiation pressure investigations

Abstract Radiation pressure – RP phenomenon has drawn much interest since the beginning of the 20th century. There are many technologies linked with it and worth mentioning: cavity optomechanics with optical cooling and small forces amplification, single atom trapping, cantilevers spring constant calibration or high-power laser measurement. Nevertheless, the quantitative measurement of the RP is always influenced by many parasitic effects e.g. photothermal effects, which can appear while the beam is absorbed. The goal of the investigations presented in this paper was to design and manufacture a MEMS tool, the so-called RP cantilever, for the reliable interactions studies (i.e. due to radiation pressure) where the photothermal effect is highly reduced. Besides design and manufacturing process we present a set of experiments showing the properties of the proposed technology and its application possibilities.