Design of a high-speed, meso-scale nanopositioners driven by electromagnetic actuators

The purpose of this thesis is to generate the design and fabrication knowledge that is required to engineer high-speed, six-axis, meso-scale nanopositioners that are driven by electromagnetic actuators. When compared to macro-scale nanopositioners, meso-scale nanopositioners enable a combination of greater bandwidth, improved thermal stability, portability, and capacity for massively parallel operation. Meso-scale nanopositioners are envisioned to impact emerging applications in data storage and nanomanufacturing, which will benefit from low-cost, portable, multi-axis nanopositioners that may position samples with nanometer-level precision at bandwidth of 100s of Hz and over a working envelope greater than 10x10x10 micrometers3 This thesis forms the foundation of design and fabrication knowledge required to engineer mesoscale systems to meet these needs.The design combines a planar silicon flexure bearing and unique moving-coil microactuators that employ millimeter-scale permanent magnets and stacked, planar-spiral micro-coils. The new moving-coil actuator outperforms previous coil designs as it enables orthogonal and linear force capability in two axes while minimizing parasitic forces. The system performance was modeled in the structural, thermal, electrical, and magnetic domains with analytical and finite-element techniques. A new method was created to model the three-dimensional permanent magnet fields of finite magnet arrays. The models were used to optimize the actuator coil and flexure geometry in order to achieve the desired motions, stiffness, and operating temperature, and to reduce thermal error motions.A new microfabrication process and design-for-manufacturing rules were generated to integrate multilayer actuator coils and silicon flexure bearings. The process combines electroplating for the copper coils, a silicon dioxide interlayer dielectric, and deep reactive-ion etching for the silicon flexures and alignment features.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2008

Author dc:creator

• Golda, Dariusz, 1979-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Martin L. Culpepper.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/43145

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/43145