Design and orthogonality correction of a planar scanner for an atomic force microscope

Abstract

This paper shows a method of designing a nano-positioning planar scanner that can be used in a scanning probe microscope. The planar scanner is composed of flexure guides, piezoelectric actuators and feedback sensors. Furthermore, we used a motion amplifying mechanism in the piezoelectric actuator to achieve a large travel range. We theoretically determined the travel range of the total system and verified the range by using a program based on a finite element analysis. The maximum travel range of the planar scanner was greater than 120 μm. A planar scanner of an atomic force microscope can move samples with a few nm resolutions. To get stable AFM images of small feature samples, a closed loop control could not be used due to large random errors of the sensor. The orthogonality of a new planar scanner having a motion guide is measured and corrected by using a simple electronic circuit in the open loop scanning to reduce the scanner artifact.