A Micromachined Nanopositioner With On-Chip Electrothermal Actuation and Sensing

Author

Zhu, Y. ; Bazaei, A. ; Moheimani, S.O.R. ; Yuce, M.R.

Author_Institution

Sch. of Electr. Eng. & Comput. Sci., Univ. of Newcastle Australia, Callaghan, NSW, Australia

Volume

31

Issue

10

fYear

2010

Firstpage

1161

Lastpage

1163

Abstract

This letter describes the design of a micromachined nanopositioner with thermal actuation and sensing capabilities in a single chip. The positioner has a dynamic range of 14.4 m, and the sensor drift is 8.9 nm over 2000 s with a differential sensing scheme. The on-chip displacement sensing enables a feedback control capability. A proportional-integral feedback controller is designed and implemented digitally. The closed-loop step response results show a positioning resolution of 7.9 nm and a time constant of 1.6 ms.

Keywords

closed loop systems; feedback; micromachining; nanopositioning; three-term control; closed-loop step response; differential sensing scheme; feedback control capability; micromachined nanopositioner; on-chip displacement sensing; on-chip electrothermal actuation; proportional-integral feedback controller design; sensing capability; Actuators; Micromechanical devices; Microscopy; Nanopositioning; Resistance; Thermal sensors; Feedback control; microelectromechanical systems (MEMS); nanopositioning; thermal actuation; thermal position sensing;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Device Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0741-3106

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LED.2010.2058841

Filename

5555937