Abstract
Among various types of precision stages, magnetically levitated precision positioning stages offer unique capabilities including frictionless motion, vacuum compatibility, and contamination-free operation, making them highly attractive for various applications such as photolithography scanners, micro-machining tools, and microscopes. However, today’s magnetically levitated stages often only offer long-stroke motion in the planar directions, and typically have a limited motion range in the vertical axis. This fact limits their applicability in machines and instruments that require precision motion in all translational degrees of freedom (DOFs). Aiming to address this challenge, this paper presents the design, modeling, prototyping, and experimental evaluations for a novel magnetically levitated nanopositioning stage, which we call the LevCube, that can provide nano-precision positioning with a motion stroke of 10 mm in all translational DOFs. The LevCube prototype stage was successfully levitated with a positioning control bandwidth of 100 Hz in the translational DOFs and 70 Hz in the rotational DOFs. The maximum force of the stage is 25.5 N under 3.5 A current amplitude, which generates a maximum stage acceleration of 2.5 times the gravitational acceleration. These performances show the potential of the proposed stage to provide all-axis long-stroke precision positioning capability for future microscopes and manufacturing machines.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
