Self-calibration of dual-actuated single-axis nanopositioners

Abstract

The rapid growth in nanosciences and technology has increased the need for high-precision nanopositioning stage technology, an important aspect of which is calibration to a traceable length standard with nanometre resolution. Direct calibration of the entire displacement range to a traceable length standard is generally difficult and time consuming because of the dearth of suitable and stable references and the need to remove all environmental disturbances during the calibration procedure. This paper introduces an approach to implementing self-calibration on a single-axis, dual-actuated, nanopositioning stage. It demonstrates how dual actuation on such a system can be used to implement the transitivity and redundancy conditions required for dimensional self-calibration so that only a single scaling input is required. The approach is verified by a series of simulations and experiments to demonstrate repeatable self-calibration of the axis to within 1 nm over a displacement range of 30 µm.