Piezo flexure nano-positioning stage

March 26, 2008

Physik Instrumente has extended its PIHera family of compact X, XY and Z flexure-guided piezo nano-positioning tables, now offering travel ranges to 1.8 mm. These precision closed-loop flexure-guided stages can be used for scanning probe applications (surface metrology) and static positioning. Most PIHera stages provide sub-nanometer resolution and even the 1.8 mm versions achieve 3 nm resolution in closed-loop operation.

Patented multilayer piezoelectric linear actuators provide high-acceleration forces. The ability to control motion with millisecond responsiveness and nanometer precision over long travel ranges makes PIHera stages ideal for measuring and QA applications.

The stages are equipped with non-contact capacitive-sensors and reduce motion linearity errors to 0.02 percent with effective resolution in the sub-nanometer range. PI capacitive sensors are absolute-measuring direct-metrology devices that boast very high bandwidth and exhibit no periodic errors. Typical applications include scanning probe microscopy, biotechnology, surface metrology, quality assurance, nanometrology, interferometry, nanopositioning and semiconductor technology.
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