  Wireless transfer of information is the basis of modern communication. It
includes cellular, WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS systems, all of which use
electromagnetic radio waves with frequencies ranging from typically 100 MHz to
a few GHz. However, several long-standing challenges with standard radio-wave
wireless transmission still exist, including keeping secure transmission of
data from potential compromise. Here, we demonstrate wireless information
transfer using a line-of-sight optical architecture with a micromechanical
element. In this fundamentally new approach, a laser beam encoded with
information impinges on a nonlinear micromechanical resonator located a
distance from the laser. The force generated by the radiation pressure of the
laser light on the nonlinear micromechanical resonator produces a sideband
modulation signal, which carries the precise information encoded in the subtle
changes in the radiation pressure. Using this, we demonstrate data and image
transfer with one hundred percent fidelity with a single 96 micron by 270
micron silicon resonator element in an optical frequency band. This mechanical
approach relies only on the momentum of the incident photons and is therefore
able to use any portion of the optical frequency banda band that is 10,000
times wider than the radio frequency band. Our line-of-sight architecture using
highly scalable micromechanical resonators offers new possibilities in wireless
communication. Due to their small size, these resonators can be easily arrayed
while maintaining a small form factor to provide redundancy and parallelism.
