High-speed Piezoelectric Controller

SPM-AFM piezoelectric controller in cooperation with NenoVision.

LiteScope™

High-speed Piezoelectric Controller

SPM-AFM piezoelectric controller in cooperation with NenoVision.

LiteScope™

Development of High-speed Piezoelectric controller for NenoVision SPM-AFM.

NenoVision fabricate a unique Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) LiteScope™ designed for easy integration into various Scanning Electron Microscopes (SEM), allowing in-situ collerative characterization of the sample in the nanoscale.

Our task in cooperation with NenoVision was to development of the piezoelectric controller in Atomic Force Microscope (AFM). The requirement was to design a fast controller based on the principles of medium-speed piezoelectric control systems, which would allow operation in Open-Loop and Close-Loop modes at least with a speed of 10 kHz.

This required the design of a sufficiently power HV amplifier with Strain-Gauges PID feedback. The power stage itself had to be treated with basic types of protection, control and monitoring systems to support the power supply with powerful thermal management, which works in an intelligent fan control mode to reduce their wear and noise reduction.

In addition, the system was required to support a minimum of three-axes without having to change the board design. This required the design of a dynamically adaptive PID and specific adjustment of the I2C bus. The whole system was eventually designed to support an unlimited number of externally adjustable PIDs and externally addressable I2C which ultimately allowed the controller to support at least a five-axes scanning system. In addition, the system supports a choice of two combinable options for monitoring and control via analog I/O and I2C.

Features

High-speed Open-Loop 500 kHz @ ±200 V @ 70 W.
High-speed Close-Loop min. 10 kHz @ ±200 V @ 70 W.
Open-Loop and Close-Loop selectable by analog input or I2C bus.
One driver supports adaptive PID for an unlimited quantity of axes without the need to change components.
One driver supports adaptive dynamic I2C address for all ADCs, DACs and expanders for 5-axes scanner.
High-speed, High-Voltage precise current detector.
Preamplifed SG symmetrical inputs for noise canceling.
Resolution range selector x 1 or x 0,1 selectable by analog input or I2C bus.

System reset by analog input or I2C bus or tactil switch.
Selectable power supplies.
Multiband filtering of sources to reduce noise.
Supervisors with defined hysteresis.
Auto-renewable overvoltage and overcurrent protections, ESD.
HV saturating monitor.
Intelligent temperature monitor and high-performance fan controller.
Techniques for increased safety in case of HV circuits failure.
Monitoring for all events on analog outputs, I2C bus and LED.
All features are accessible by analog inputs and I2C bus.

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Piezoelectric Controller to Atomic Force Microscope

Precise PCB design

Ground loop control

Precise signals control

Precise layout for noise reduction

Compression of components to reduce dimensions

PCB price reduction techniques could not be used due to client requirements.

NenoVision launched device for a unique AFM-in-SEM technology for correlative 3D imaging.

LiteScope™

NenoVision under the leadership of CEO Jan Neuman launched a unique Atomic Force Microscope LiteScope™, which supports integration in SEM at the same time and allows to measure during scanning of SEM. This is potential to revolutionize the way perform correlative analysis „AFM-in-SEM“ suported In-situ multimodal & time-effecient workflow.

In addition, NenoVision is the only company to market a device that makes openhardware DSP available.

By combining these properties with this piezoelectric controller is LiteScope™ unmatched truly a unique and powerful AFM device.