Design, characterization, and control of a monolithic three-axis high-bandwidth nanopositioning stage

A new three-axis serial-kinematic nanopositioning stage developed for high-bandwidth applications such as video-rate scanning probe microscopy (SPM) is presented. The stage employs uniquely designed compliant flexures for guiding the motion of the sample platform and to minimize parasitic motion (runout) and off-axis effects compared to previous designs. Finite element analysis (FEA) predicts the dominant resonances along the fast (x-axis) and slow (y-axis) scanning axes at 25.9 and 5.96 kHz, respectively. The performance of the nanopositioning stage is evaluated and the measured dominant resonances in the fast and slow scanning directions are 24.2 and 6.0 kHz, respectively, which are in good agreement with the FEA predictions. The lateral and vertical positioning range of the prototype stage is approximately 9 × 9 μm² and 1 μm, respectively. Experimental atomic force microscope imaging and tracking results for closed- and open-loop feedforward control are presented to demonstrate the performance of the stage.