Scanning Probe Microscopy
Probe Based Lithography
Probe based lithography involves creating nanometer sized features from photoresist and metal on conducting and semiconducting substrates. Near field optical, electrical and thermal fields are employed in combination with evaporation, etching and electroplating to provide high-speed alternatives for mask-less nanofabrication.
Nanopositioning
A nanopositioner is a electromechanical device for moving objects in three dimensions with atomic, or sub-atomic resolution. Nanopositioners are employed in applications such as imaging, fabrication and optics. This field encompasses mechanical design, sensor design, and control theory. More details.
Electroactive Optics
Piezoelectric actuators can be combined with mirrors, lenses and objectives to actively control the path and properties of an optical field or laser beam. High speed electro-optics are required for precision lasers, maskless lithography, and microscopy.
Precision Sensors
This project aims to study the fundamental limitations of capacitive, optical and magnetic position sensors. New techniques are under development to provide sub-atomic resolution over extremely wide bandwidth.
Biomedical Devices
An endoscopic pill robot is being developed for noninvasive imaging and intervention. The robot can be swallowed and includes power transmission, 6-Dimensional localization, and locomotion.
Piezo Actuators and Amplifiers
Piezo Robotics
Due to their compact size and high efficiency, piezoelectric actuators are ideal for micro-actuation in bio-inspired robotics. This project is developing actuators and mechanics for a piezoelectric dragon-fly robot.
Ruppert, M. G.; Moheimani, S. O. R.
Multimode Q Control in Tapping-Mode AFM: Enabling Imaging on Higher Flexural Eigenmodes Journal Article
In: IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, vol. 24, no. 4, pp. 1149-1159, 2016.
@article{Ruppert2016b,
title = {Multimode Q Control in Tapping-Mode AFM: Enabling Imaging on Higher Flexural Eigenmodes},
author = {M. G. Ruppert and S. O. R. Moheimani},
doi = {10.1109/TCST.2015.2478077},
year = {2016},
date = {2016-07-01},
journal = {IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology},
volume = {24},
number = {4},
pages = {1149-1159},
abstract = {Numerous dynamic Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) methods have appeared in recent years, which make use of the excitation and detection of higher order eigenmodes of the microcantilever. The ability to control these modes and their responses to excitation is believed to be the key to unraveling the true potential of these methods. In this work, we highlight a multi-mode Q control method that exhibits remarkable damping performance and stability robustness. The experimental results obtained in ambient conditions demonstrate improved imaging stability by damping non-driven resonant modes when scanning is performed at a higher eigenmode of the cantilever. Higher scan speeds are shown to result from a decrease in transient response time. },
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pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Ruppert, M. G.; Harcombe, D. M.; Moheimani, S. O. R.
State estimation for high-speed multifrequency atomic force microscopy Proceedings Article
In: American Control Conference, pp. 2617-2622, Boston, MA, USA, 2016.
@inproceedings{Ruppert2016b,
title = {State estimation for high-speed multifrequency atomic force microscopy},
author = {M. G. Ruppert and D. M. Harcombe and S. O. R. Moheimani},
doi = {10.1109/ACC.2016.7525311},
year = {2016},
date = {2016-07-01},
booktitle = {American Control Conference},
pages = {2617-2622},
address = {Boston, MA, USA},
abstract = {A fundamental component in the z-axis feedback loop of an atomic force microscope (AFM) operated in dynamic mode is the lock-in amplifier to obtain amplitude and phase of the high-frequency cantilever deflection signal. While this narrowband demodulation technique is capable of filtering noise far away from the carrier and modulation frequency, its performance is ultimately bounded by the bandwidth of its low-pass filter which is employed to suppress the frequency component at twice the carrier frequency. Moreover, multiple eigenmodes and higher harmonics are used for imaging in modern multifrequency AFMs, which necessitates multiple lock-in amplifiers to recover the respective amplitude and phase information. We propose to estimate amplitude and phase of multiple frequency components with a linear time-varying Kalman filter which allows for an efficient implementation on a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). While experimental results for the single mode case have already proven to increase the imaging bandwidth in tapping-mode AFM, multifrequency simulations promise further improvement in imaging flexibility. },
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pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inproceedings}
}
Yong, Y. K.
A new preload mechanism for a high-speed piezoelectric stack nanopositioner Journal Article
In: Mechatronics, vol. 36, pp. 159-166, 2016.
@article{Yong2016b,
title = {A new preload mechanism for a high-speed piezoelectric stack nanopositioner},
author = {Y. K. Yong},
url = {http://www.eng.newcastle.edu.au/~yy582/Papers/Yong2016_preload.pdf},
year = {2016},
date = {2016-04-13},
journal = {Mechatronics},
volume = {36},
pages = {159-166},
abstract = {Piezoelectric stack actuators are the actuator of choice for many ultra-high precision systems owning to its fast responses and high pushing force capabilities. These actuators are constructed by bonding multiple piezoelectric layers together. An inevitable drawback of these actuators is that there are highly intolerant to tensile and shear forces. During high-speed operations, inertial forces due to effective mass of the system cause the actuators to experience excessive tensile forces. To avoid damage to the actuators, preload must be applied to compensate for these forces. In many nanopositioning systems, flexures are used to provide preload to the piezoelectric stack actuators. However, for high-speed systems with stiff flexures, displacing the flexures and sliding the actuators in place to preload them is a difficult task. One may reduce the stiffness of the flexures to make the preload process more feasible; however, this reduces the mechanical bandwidth of the system. This paper presents a novel preload mechanism that tackles the limitations mentioned above. The preload stage, which is connected in parallel mechanically to a high-speed vertical nanopositioner, allows the piezoelectric stack actuator to be installed and preloaded easily without significantly trading of the stiffness and speed of the nanopositioning system. The proposed vertical nanopositioner has a travel range of 10.6 μ m. Its first resonant mode appears at about 24 kHz along
the actuation direction.},
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pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
the actuation direction.
Ruppert, M. G.; Moheimani, S. O. R.
High-bandwidth Multimode Self-sensing in Bimodal Atomic Force Microscopy Journal Article
In: Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology, vol. 7, pp. 284-295, 2016.
@article{Ruppert2016b,
title = {High-bandwidth Multimode Self-sensing in Bimodal Atomic Force Microscopy},
author = {M. G. Ruppert and S. O. R. Moheimani},
doi = {10.3762/bjnano.7.26},
year = {2016},
date = {2016-02-24},
journal = {Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology},
volume = {7},
pages = {284-295},
abstract = {Using standard microelectromechanical system (MEMS) processes to coat a microcantilever with a piezoelectric layer results in a versatile transducer with inherent self-sensing capabilities. For applications in multifrequency atomic force microscopy (MF-AFM), we illustrate that a single piezoelectric layer can be simultaneously used for multimode excitation and detection of the cantilever deflection. This is achieved by a charge sensor with a bandwidth of 10 MHz and dual feedthrough cancellation to recover the resonant modes that are heavily buried in feedthrough originating from the piezoelectric capacitance. The setup enables the omission of the commonly used piezoelectric stack actuator and optical beam deflection sensor, alleviating limitations due to distorted frequency responses and instrumentation cost, respectively. The proposed method benefits from a more than two orders of magnitude increase in deflection to strain sensitivity on the fifth eigenmode leading to a remarkable signal-to-noise ratio. Experimental results using bimodal AFM imaging on a two component polymer sample validate that the self-sensing scheme can therefore be used to provide both the feedback signal, for topography imaging on the fundamental mode, and phase imaging on the higher eigenmode.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Fleming, A. J.; Leang, K. K.
Position Sensors for Nanopositioning Book Chapter
In: Ru, C.; Liu, X.; Sun, Y. (Ed.): Springer, 2016, ISBN: 978-3-319-23853-1.
@inbook{B15a,
title = {Position Sensors for Nanopositioning},
author = {A. J. Fleming and K. K. Leang},
editor = {C. Ru and X. Liu and Y. Sun},
isbn = {978-3-319-23853-1},
year = {2016},
date = {2016-02-01},
publisher = {Springer},
abstract = {Position sensors with nanometer resolution are a key component of many precision imaging and fabrication machines. Since the sensor characteristics can define the linearity, resolution and speed of the machine, the sensor performance is a foremost consideration. The first goal of this article is to define concise performance metrics and to provide exact and approximate expressions for error sources including non-linearity, drift and noise. The second goal is to review current position sensor technologies and to compare their performance. The sensors considered include: resistive, piezoelectric and piezoresistive strain sensors; capacitive sensors; electrothermal sensors; eddy current sensors; linear variable displacement transformers; interferometers; and linear encoders.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inbook}
}