PI (Physik Instrumente) has extended its PIHera family of flexure-guided piezo nanopositioning stages, now offering travel ranges to 1.8mm.
These precision closed-loop flexure-guided stages can be used for scanning probe applications (surface metrology) and static positioning. Due to the long travel ranges they can scan areas more than 200 times larger than conventional piezo stages with typical ranges of 100x100µm.
Most PIHera stages provide sub-nanometer resolution and even the 1.8mm versions achieve three nm resolution in closed-loop operation.
The compact size is achieved with a new, friction-free and extremely stiff flexure system, which also provides fast response and excellent guiding accuracy. Trajectory precision is in the low-nanometer range. High acceleration forces are provided by patented, long-life multilayer piezoelectric linear actuators.
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 provide extremely linear motion with up to 99.98 per cent accuracy and 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.
X, XY, Z and XYZ versions with 50 to 1800µm travel ranges and nanometer resolution are available. There are also vacuum-compatible versions.