Patent ID: 7173714

Claim:
An apparatus for parallel detection of the behaviour of mechanical micro-oscillators, comprising: a support ( 15 ); a multichannel detector ( 14 ) a plural number of mechanical micro-oscillators ( 12 ) mounted on the support ( 15 ) and positioned for interacting with a sample ( 21 ), each micro-oscillator having a micro-oscillator end ( 10 , 11 ) and an output; and an optical means for measuring an amplitude and a phase of oscillations produced by the micro-oscillators ( 12 ), said optical means comprising i) a periodic luminous source ( 1 ) for generating an incident luminous beam ( 4 ), the luminous source active during a fraction 1/n of a period (n integer) and with a variable phase (p/n) of the period (p integer), ii) operatively connected to an output of the luminous source, to receive the incident luminous beam ( 4 ) from the luminous source, a means for splitting and polarizing the incident luminous beam comprising a) a means for producing, from the incident luminous beam ( 4 ), a reflected and modulated luminous beam, and b) a means for splitting said reflected and modulated luminous beams into separate polarized beams ( 7 , 8 ) directed to each of the micro-oscillator ends ( 10 , 11 ), and iii) an interference means operatively connected to a) the means for producing reflected and modulated luminous beams and b) the outputs of the micro-oscillators ( 12 ), the interference means producing an interference image of the reflected and modulated luminous beams based on the outputs of the micro-oscillators ( 12 ), the interference image being directed to the multichannel detector; and the multichannel detector ( 14 ) comprising i) plural channels equal in number to at least the plural number of micro-oscillators, ii) a means for periodical displacement of the micro-oscillators ( 12 ) as a group ( 21 ), iii) a means to vary the value of the period of the luminous source and to integrate plural elementary measures to obtain a representative measurement for each value of the period, and iv) a computer ( 20 ) enabled to record, in a buffer memory, representative data obtained for each value of the period for a number of accumulations and then enabled to calculate the phase and the amplitude of each micro-oscillator ( 12 ).