PI miCos: A high density of solutions for the rarified world of vacuum

Since the last millenium, serving research and industrial needs for positioning equipment for vacuum and cryogenic applications has been a key focus for PI miCos.  These many years of expertise have yielded some of the most sophisticated design, manufacturing and support capabilities for the field available anywhere.  A host of off-the-shelf and customized configurations are offered, as are highly configured integrated assemblies of multiaxis motion for environments to 10^-9 mbar.  A small sampling is presented below.

In addition to having built impressive design and fabrication capabilities, PI miCos has deployed dedicated applications teams to support key fields, such as our recently-announced Beamline Instrumentation Group, which has its own field-specific website at BeamlineInstrumentation.com. Also see our earlier post, Little Motions for Big Physics.

Besides the PI miCos positioning equipment currently hard at work on Mars, a host of more Earthly applications can benefit from these capabilities, including:

• Diffractometry
• Ellipsometry
• Particle beam instrumentation
• Synchrotron beamline equipment
• Microlithography
• Nanoimprint lithography
• E-beam, ion beam and Auger microscopy...

As high-vacuum applications continue to spread throughout the research and technology world, constant innovation and continuous improvement of design and manufacturing processes are needed just to keep up.  Partnering with a source of acknowledged expertise will help your application be productive sooner and keep costs down.  Have a tough vacuum positioning application?  See our web resources and tutorials here and here, and consult your local PI miCos applications professional today.

	Ultra-High-Vacuum Rotation Stage with High Precision Reproducibility to 0.0002 deg (bidirectional) Rotational Velocity to 200 deg/second Payload to 50 kg Optional High Resolution Encoder Clear aperture up to 120 millimeters
	Ultra-High-Vacuum Positioning Table with Extreme Accuracy UPM-160 UHV Positioning Range to 205 millimeters (8 inches) Unidirectional Position Reproducibility to ±0.02 microns Max. Velocity 100 mm/second Payload to 35 kg Linear scale encoder (center mounted)
	Ultra-High-Vacuum Positioning Table LS-180-UHV Positioning Range to 508 millimeters (20 inches) Unidirectional Position Reproducibility to ±0.05 microns Max. Velocity 200 mm/second Payload to 100 kg Precision Limit Switches Available linear scale encoder (center-mount)
	High-Vacuum Positioning Table LS-110-UHV Positioning Range to 305 millimeters (12 inches) Unidirectional Position Reproducibility to ±0.05 microns Max. Velocity 90 mm/second Payload to 10 kg Precision Limit Switches Available linear scale encoder (center-mount)
	High-Vacuum Precision Positioning Table PLS-85-HV Positioning Range to 155 millimeters (6 inches) Unidirectional Position Reproducibility to ±0.05 microns Max. Velocity 100 mm/second Payload to 10 kg Precision Limit Switches Available linear scale encoder
	Ultra-High-Vacuum Positioning Table MT-65-UHV Positioning Range to 155 millimeters (6 inches) Unidirectional Position Reproducibility to ±0.05 microns Max. Velocity 100 mm/second Payload to 10 kg Precision Limit Switches Available linear scale encoder
	High-Vacuum Micropositioning Stage MTS-65 HV Positioning Range to 52 millimeters (2 inches) Unidirectional Position Reproducibility to ±0.1 microns Max. Velocity 8 mm/second Payload to 2 kg Precision Limit Switches Available linear scale encoder
	Ultra-High-Vacuum Positioning Table VT-80-FV-HV-UHV Positioning Range to 300 mm Unidirectional Position Reproducibility to ±0.2 microns Max. Velocity 20 mm/second Payload to 5 kg Precision Limit Switches
	Ultra-High-Vacuum Precision Actuator Pusher MP-20-L-UHV Positioning Range to 75 mm Unidirectional Position Reproducibility to ±0.5 microns Max. Velocity 3.5 mm/second Force max. 125 N Precision Limit Switches High resolution With MP-B & MP-F inserts
	Ultra-High-Vacuum Precision Linear Actuator MP-20-S-UHV Travel range 12.5 mm Unidirectional Position Reproducibility to ±1 microns Max. Velocity 3 mm/second Force max. 20 N Precision Limit Switches High resolution

A resource for the latest for imaging

There's a lot going on in the microscopy-imaging world.  It seems that each month brings publication

Long-travel coarse/fine specimen
positioners in a super-resolution
microscope, courtesy of the
Bewersdorf Lab at Yale University

of another clever technique that casts our eyes ever deeper into the nanoscale world.  The post-Rayleigh era of microscopy is in full bloom, and to support it have come new tools and technologies: new objectives of extreme capabilities; new cameras that waste not a single photon; new software which provides usability, enhances productivity and teases details out of the murk; and new motion technologies of surpassing precision and stability.

A current article in Microscopy Today serves as a compendium of recent motion technologies of specific interest to imaging scientists and engineers.  Its central focus is piezo ceramic technology in general and its burgeoning application in one novel design after another.  Familiar from layered stack actuators of astonishing resolution but limited travel, piezo ceramics are now utilized in long-travel designs spanning several broad mechanical classes.

The article discusses some of the most promising of these developments for imaging applications:

• High-stiffness piezo walking actuators for objective positioning over 2mm with picometer positionability; 
• High-stability resonant piezomotors for fast sample positioning with submicron precision over centimeters of travel; 
• New controls techniques for ever-finer linearity and controllability of flexure-guided piezo-stack mechanisms... 

Each of these newly-developed technologies represents a response to seemingly impossible application challenges.  Each is an enabler of new avenues of investigation, new discoveries, and new breakthroughs.  Perhaps yours will be among them!  Just let us know what impossible application challenges you'd like addressed next.