The Power of PicoQ®: Ultra-Low Position Noise
Featured Product from Mad City Labs, Inc.
Ultra-Low Position Noise
Mad City Labs piezo nanopositioners include integrated, high-bandwidth, direct measurement position sensors with proprietary PicoQ® sensor technology, yielding unmatched precision and resolution capabilities due to the inherent low-noise properties of PicoQ® sensor technology.
Piezo nanopositioners with PicoQ® sensor technology have lower position noise than capacitive sensor systems and exhibit better inherent long time-scale stability due to low 1/f noise. Capacitive sensor systems exhibit large 1/f noise at 10 Hz and below, resulting
in long term position drift. The industry standard measurement of inherent position noise of piezo nanopositioners is position noise power spectrum analysis [MacKay, James F. Understanding noise at the nanometer scale. Laser Focus World, 43.3, (2007)]. When selecting a nanopositioning system, every customer should insist on seeing the position noise power spectrum of the piezo nanopositioner over the entire usable range of the device, typically 0.01 Hz to 1000 Hz..
Position noise of a piezo nanopositioning system is the ultimate limit of the system's measurement resolution. Many applications involving sub-nanometer measurements, such as atomic force microscopy (AFM), would not be possible without low noise piezo nanopositioning systems. Some companies claim to sell systems with sub-nanometer resolution, but they do not have data from external metrology tests to support their claims. All Mad City Labs piezo nanopositioning products are rigorously tested before shipment. These tests involve a series of measurements designed to fully characterize the performance of the piezo nanopositioning system with a realistic environment and testing conditions that match the application. Available metrology tools include NIST-traceable interferometers, high resolution AFM, and a high resolution position noise analyzer, designed specifically for piezo nanopositioner characterization.
Measurements taken with an AFM show that nanopositioners with PicoQ® sensor technology have sufficiently low position noise to accurately resolve single atomic layer size steps, 312 pm.
AFM Demonstrations: Sub-Nanometer Motion
100 and 450 micron range nanopositioners with PicoQ® sensor technology perform 860 picometer steps, 1 nanometer sine wave, and repeated 95 picometer steps, externally measured by AFM.
AFM Demonstrations: Measuring Surface Roughness
AFM is used to externally verify that the position noise of a nanopositioning system with PicoQ® sensor technology is less than the surface roughness of a Si (111) sample, 60 pm RMS.
Mad City Labs, Inc has been a leading manufacturer of flexure based piezo nanopositioning systems capable of sub-nanometer positioning resolution since 1998. Our piezo nanopositioning product line covers the entire spectrum of piezo nanopositioning capabilities while maintaining a leadership role in multi-axis stages for high speed optical microscopy imaging. Mad City Labs engineers use 3D CAD and finite element analysis to produce piezo nanopositioners which combine long ranges of motion with exceptional linearity, orthogonality, and stability. Our in-house CNC machining centers and wire EDMs provide complete control of mechanical assembly production and allow Mad City Labs to design and fabricate custom systems with minimal engineering costs and short lead times. We deliver the tools for nanotechnology in 30 to 45 days and provide the highest level of customer service and satisfaction in the industry. We provide innovative and practical solutions for today’s demanding biotechnology and nanotechnology applications. Most Mad City Labs piezo nanopositioners can be controlled by our high speed USB 2.0 interface. Applications for nanopositioners include super resolution microscopy, high speed confocal imaging, AFM, NSOM, scanning probe microscopy, fiber positioning, single molecule spectroscopy, single molecule/particle tracking, high resolution optical alignment, SR optical microscopy, sub-diffraction limit microscopy, nanoscopy and lithography.
