ANALYSIS OF PIEZO ACTUATORS IN TRANSLATION CONSTRUCTIONS

A translation stage has been developed for generating displacements with nanometer accuracy and a dynamic range of 10 μm. The stage uses piezo stacks as actuators and is equipped with capacitive sensors which are able to measure displacements with subnanometer resolution. Because the measurements are very accurate, the displacement properties of the piezo actuator used in the translation stage can be recorded with high precision. This allows us to investigate the displacement response of the piezo actuator when sinusoidal and triangular voltages are applied to it. These measurements will be used to model the hysteresis behavior of the piezo actuator. It is observed that the branches of the hysteresis curves can be described by a third-order polynome and that the hysteresis curve has point symmetry properties. Also a model is presented for describing the general behavior of a piezo actuator in a translation stage. © 1995 American Institute of Physics.