A submicron multiaxis positioning stage for micro- and nanoscale manufacturing processes

A piezoelectrically driven, submicron XY-positioning stage with multiprocess capability is developed and then integrated into two micro/nanoscale manufacturing processes to improve their performance. The design is based on the HexFlex(TM) mechanism but is modified to improve structural robustness using a combination of factorial design, linear programming, and finite element analysis. Performance analysis reveals travel ranges of 16 mu m (X-axis) and 8 mu m (Y-axis), positioning accuracies of 87 nm (X-axis) and 92 nm (Y-axis), and overall stiffnesses of 32 N/mu m (X-axis) and 36 N/mu m (Y-axis). A comparison of microfluidic channels manufactured with a micromachine tool (mMT) alone and with the stage stacked on the mMT shows an improvement in feature accuracy from 870 nm to 170 nm. The stage is integrated with an electrochemical deposition setup. Nanowire structures with sharp angles are fabricated. The diameter of these nanowires shows an improvement in uniformity by decreasing the standard deviation of diameter variation from 2.088 mu m to 0.009 mu m.