SEMINAR: PhD Thesis Completion Presentation

I report development of acoustic resonators that would form the heart of a 3-mode opto-acoustic parametric amplifier, and present their performance. The small resonators are designed to form an add-on element to current existing technologies in space-mining, finding water resources km underground and other geophysical applications. The idea is to connect current existing sensing elements (ex: electromagnetic sensors) to this 'amplifier', to increase the signal of deep underground, small, or otherwise hard to detect targets.

The resonators are built to vibrate with a special torsion mode, in the ~100kHz range, and shows quality factors of near 10^6 in vacuum, outperforming similar silicon prototypes from around the world. I will discuss the many microfabrication techniques employed, from an international collaboration of France, Taiwan, Queensland and Perth, as well as the evolution of the experimental techniques and setups used to characterise our resonators. A short discussion on the next steps and end goal of this research to conclude.