A Survey of Methods Used to Control Piezoelectric Tube Scanners in High‐Speed AFM Imaging

Abstract

In most nanotechnology applications, speed and precision are important requirements for obtaining good topographical maps of material surfaces using atomic force microscopes (AFMs), many of which use piezoelectric tube scanners (PTSs) for scanning and positioning at nanometric resolutions. For control engineers, the PTS is particularly interesting since its ability to enable the AFM to undertake 3D imaging is entirely dependent upon the use of a feedback loop. However, it suffers from various intrinsic problems that degrade its positioning performance, such as: (i) lightly damped low-frequency resonant modes due to its mechanical structure; (ii) nonlinear behavior due to hysteresis and creep; (iii) the cross-coupling effect between its axes (in 3D positioning systems such as AFMs); and (iv) effect of thermal drift. This article presents a survey of the literature on the PTS, an overview of a few existing innovative solutions for its nanopositioning and future research directions. This article will help the reader to walk around the present development of the PTS aimed at meeting the requirements for high-speed AFM imaging.

On hysteresis modeling of a piezoelectric precise positioning system under variable temperature

“…The effect of the temperature on piezoelectric actuators behavior could be drastically in the final tasks if not properly accounted. For instance, piezoelectric tube actuators, called piezotube scanners, are the main actuator used for scanning probe microscopy for images scanning [49], and are also used in precise positioning for nano-indentation [50], nano-manipulation or nano-assembly [51,52]. In these applications, the tasks are generally under lights allowing the cameras that track them to record efficiently.…”

Improved 3D Imaging Performance of AFM

“…Nevertheless, at high scanning speed the imaging performances of presently available AFMs are constrained by the limitations of their scanning element called Piezoelectric Tube Actuator (PTA) (Li et al, 2019 andRana et al, 2018). The major limitations of the AFM's PTA are the non-linear manners in the form of hysteresis (Zhang et al, 2019) and creep effects (Rana et al, 2014a); low resonance frequency (Moheimani and Vautier, 2005) and motion coupling effect among the axes (Rana et al, 2014b).…”

Robust μ-Synthesis With Dahl Model Based Feedforward Compensator Design for Piezo-Actuated Micropositioning Stage

“…Due to these numerous advantages, piezo-actuated positioning stages are commonly used in many applications, e.g. in scanning probe microscopy [2], advanced lithography tools for the fabrication of semiconductor integrated circuits [3], servo system of hard disk-drives [4], optical alignment systems [5], manipulation of nanoscale biological process like DNA analysis [6] and also in the manufacturing of small objects [7]. In all these applications, ultra-precise positioning with high speed and long positioning range is desired.…”