Physical limits to auditory transduction of hair-cell bundles probed by a biomimetic system

Abstract

Inspired by auditory hair cells of lower vertebrates, we design and fabricate an opto-electro-mechanical sensor at the border of its spontaneous activity, called Hopf bifurcation critical point. As proposed for biological hair cells, we observe that, as the system approaches the critical point, the frequency selectivity and the force sensitivity are enhanced. However, we find that the enhancement has limits because of its intrinsic nonlinearity, even at the critical point. We also find that the minimally detectable force is not influenced by the active feedback force despite its enhanced sensitivity. This is due to the inevitable heating of the hair bundle, which implies that the active amplification of the hair cell bundle might not lower the threshold level of detectable sound.