Design and fabrication of a multipurpose compliant nanopositioning architecture

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2013.

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Panas, Robert M. (Robert Matthew)
Other Authors: Martin L. Culpepper IV.
Format: Thesis
Language:eng
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2013
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/81754
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author Panas, Robert M. (Robert Matthew)
author2 Martin L. Culpepper IV.
author_facet Martin L. Culpepper IV.
Panas, Robert M. (Robert Matthew)
author_sort Panas, Robert M. (Robert Matthew)
collection MIT
description Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2013.
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spelling mit-1721.1/817542019-04-12T21:25:02Z Design and fabrication of a multipurpose compliant nanopositioning architecture Panas, Robert M. (Robert Matthew) Martin L. Culpepper IV. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering. Mechanical Engineering. Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2013. This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis. Includes bibliographical references (p. 227-241). This research focused on generating the knowledge required to design and fabricate a high-speed application flexible, low average cost multipurpose compliant nanopositioner architecture with high performance integrated sensing. Customized nanopositioner designs can be created in ~~1 week, for <$1k average device cost even in batch sizes of 1-10, with sensing operating at a demonstrated 59dB full noise dynamic range over a 10khz sensor bandwidth, and performance limits of 135dB. This is a ~~25x reduction in time, ~~20x reduction in cost and potentially >30x increase in sensing dynamic range over comparable state-of-the-art compliant nanopositioners. These improvements will remove one of the main hurdles to practical non-IC nanomanufacturing, which could enable advances in a range of fields including personalized medication, computing and data storage, and energy generation/storage through the manufacture of metamaterials. Advances were made in two avenues: flexibility and affordability. The fundamental advance in flexibility is the use of a new approach to modeling the nanopositioner and sensors as combined mechanical/electronic systems. This enabled the discovery of the operational regimes and design rules needed to maximize performance, making it possible to rapidly redesign nanopositioner architecture for varying functional requirements such as range, resolution and force. The fundamental advance to increase affordability is the invention of Non-Lithographically-Based Microfabrication (NLBM), a hybrid macro-/micro-fabrication process chain that can produce MEMS with integrated sensing in a flexible manner, at small volumes and with low per-device costs. This will allow for low-cost customizable nanopositioning architectures with integrated position sensing to be created for a range of micro-/nano- manufacturing and metrology applications. A Hexflex 6DOF nanopositioner with titanium flexures and integrated siliconpiezoresistive sensing was fabricated using NLBM. This device was designed with a metal mechanical structure in order to improve its robustness for general handling and operation. Single crystalline silicon piezoresistors were patterned from bulk silicon wafers and transferred to the mechanical structure via thin-film patterning and transfer. This work demonstrates that it is now feasible to design and create a customized positioner for each nanomanufacturing/metrology application. The Hexflex architecture can be significantly varied to adjust range, resolution, force scale, stiffness, and DOF all as needed. The NLBM process was shown to enable alignment of device components on the scale of 10's of microns. 150μm piezoresistor arm widths were demonstrated, with suggestions made for how to reach the expected lower bound of 25[mu]m. Flexures of 150[mu]m and 600[mu]m were demonstrated on 4 the mechanical structure, with a lower bound of ~~50[mu]m expected for the process. Electrical traces of 800[mu]m width were used to ensure low resistance, with a lower bound of ~~100[mu]m expected for the process. The integrated piezoresistive sensing was designed to have a gage factor of about 125, but was reduced to about 70 due to lower substrate temperatures during soldering, as predicted by design theory. The sensors were measured to have a full noise dynamic range of about 59dB over a 10kHz sensor bandwidth, limited by the Schottky barrier noise. Several simple methods are suggested for boosting the performance to ~~135dB over a 10kHz sensor bandwidth, about a <1Å resolution over the 200[mu]m range of the case study device. This sensor performance is generally in excess of presently available kHz-bandwidth analog-to-digital converters. by Robert M. Panas. Ph.D. 2013-10-24T18:13:24Z 2013-10-24T18:13:24Z 2013 2013 Thesis http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/81754 860905002 eng 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. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 324 p. application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Mechanical Engineering.
Panas, Robert M. (Robert Matthew)
Design and fabrication of a multipurpose compliant nanopositioning architecture
title Design and fabrication of a multipurpose compliant nanopositioning architecture
title_full Design and fabrication of a multipurpose compliant nanopositioning architecture
title_fullStr Design and fabrication of a multipurpose compliant nanopositioning architecture
title_full_unstemmed Design and fabrication of a multipurpose compliant nanopositioning architecture
title_short Design and fabrication of a multipurpose compliant nanopositioning architecture
title_sort design and fabrication of a multipurpose compliant nanopositioning architecture
topic Mechanical Engineering.
url http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/81754
work_keys_str_mv AT panasrobertmrobertmatthew designandfabricationofamultipurposecompliantnanopositioningarchitecture