Design of MEMS based three-axis motion stage by incorporating a nested structure

A new design of three degrees-of-freedom (DOF) translational motion stage (XYZ stage) is presented in this paper. This XYZ stage is based on MEMS and designed by combining three existing one-DOF motion stages through a nested structure. By utilizing the previously developed stages, this approach can reduce the effort for the design and analysis steps and ensure reasonable reliability. For successful implementation, electrical connection to the engaged stages, electrical isolation among them, and additional floating frames are introduced for the chosen one-DOF motion stages. With these features, the presented XYZ stage is successfully fabricated and demonstrates the range of motion of 53.98, 49.15, and 22.91 mu m along X, Y, and Z axes, respectively. The coupled motion errors among the engaged stages can be reduced to be less than 1 mu m with the proposed compensation method.