Design of MEMS based three-axis motion stage by incorporating a nested structure

Abstract

A new design of three degrees-of-freedom (DOF) translational motion stage (XYZ stage) is presented in this paper. This XYZ stage is based on MEMS and designed by combining three existing one-DOF motion stages through a nested structure. By utilizing the previously developed stages, this approach can reduce the effort for the design and analysis steps and ensure reasonable reliability. For successful implementation, electrical connection to the engaged stages, electrical isolation among them, and additional floating frames are introduced for the chosen one-DOF motion stages. With these features, the presented XYZ stage is successfully fabricated and demonstrates the range of motion of 53.98, 49.15, and 22.91 µm along X, Y, and Z axes, respectively. The coupled motion errors among the engaged stages can be reduced to be less than 1 µm with the proposed compensation method.

Design and simulation analysis of an integrated <i>xyz</i> micro-actuator for controlling displacement of a scanning probe

“…For an xy two-dimensional micro-actuator, one often employs springs used in one-dimensional micro--actuator and arranges them in two x and y orthogonal directions (Sasaki et al, 2008). There are also designs of xyz three-dimensional micro-actuators reported in literature (Liu et al, 2007;Correa et al, 2016;Ando, 2004;Dong and Ferreira, 2009;Kim et al, 2014;Takahashi et al, 2009). In (Correa et al, 2016;Ando, 2004;Dong, 2009;Kim et al, 2014), springs for the xyz actuation are connected softly together or directly connected to the center plate without stiff gimbal frames, so the cross-axis coupling of motion still exists.…”

Parallel-kinematics XYZ MEMS part 1: Kinematics and design for fabrication

“…Alternatively, vertical comb-actuators have been used to generate motion in the out-of-plane direction and they have been found useful in applications such as scanning micro-mirrors [22]. An example of a serial mechanism for 3-axis micro motion stage is given in [23]. This design assembles a nested structure of electrostatically driven stages to produce the XY motion and an electro-thermally driven stage to produce the Z motion.…”

Compliance and control characteristics of an additive manufactured-flexure stage

“…2,7 Recently, with progress of microelectromechanical system (MEMS) technology, many MEMS motion stages have been introduced. 9,10 However, the total displacement is limited to a few tens of µm even though those are promising for high bandwidth and high resolution. The use of polymer as materials for flexure stages can be an alternative breakthrough to explore various biological, electrical, and magnetic applications because general polymers are biocompatible and electrically insulating.…”