Opto-Mechano-Fluidic Viscometer

The recent development of opto-mechano-fluidic resonators has provided -- by harnessing photon radiation pressure -- a new microfluidics platform for the optical sensing of fluid density and bulk modulus. Here we show that fluid viscosity can also be determined through optomechanical measurement of the vibrational noise spectrum of the resonator mechanical modes. A linear relationship between the spectral linewidth and root-viscosity is predicted and experimentally verified in the low viscosity regime. Our result is a step towards multi-frequency measurement of viscoelasticity of arbitrary fluids, without sample contamination, using highly sensitive optomechanics techniques.