Large displacement nanopositioning flexure fabricated by direct 3D printing of Titanium

This paper reports the design, fabrication and testing of a piezoelectric actuated XY nanopositioning stage made up of Titanium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V) fabricated for the first time through a 3D printing, namely Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing (EBAM). It allows for improved mechanical stiffness, bandwidth of the stage, and light weight, compact structure. The resonant frequencies of x and y axes of the stage have shown to be almost identical 1.854 kHz and 1.858 kHz respectively, showing fabrication repeatability. The stage has been used in optical positioning utilizing a PID controller which enables 50μm translation with linear motion.