Design and Control for High-Speed Nanopositioning: Serial-Kinematic Nanopositioners and Repetitive Control for Nanofabrication

This article focuses on the design and control of nanopo-sitioning systems (nanoposi-tioners) that operate mostly in a repetitive fashion. In addition to accuracy, speed is also a crucial requirement for these systems. Multi-axis nanopositioners are critical in applications such as atomic force microscopy (AFM) [1], fiber optic alignment [2], micro- and nanoma-chining [3], [4], and nanometrology [5], [6]. More specifically, for video-rate scanning probe microscopy (SPM) and high-throughput probe-based nano-fabrication [7], the desired motion trajectory of the nanopositioner repeats from one operating cycle to the next and the motion should be as fast and accurate as possible. However, vibrations caused by mechanical resonance are a major factor limiting the speed. Typically, the bandwidth of these systems is limited by the first mode of vibration [8], [9].