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Selected Applications
Industrial Line
New Stable and Portable X-Ray Microspectroscope at KEK
At the high energy research accelerator KEK in Japan, Dr. Takeichi et
al. designed a novel X-Ray microspectroscope for high resolution com-
position analysis. The setup is comprised of 11 attocube ECS stepping
positioners and a dedicated scanner for sample imaging. All the posi-
tioners are equipped with optoelectronic sensors and can be digitally
controlled. The sample stage is stabilized via attocube’s interferometric
FPS3010 sensor with a resolution of 25 pm. The whole four-stack-setup
is compact enough to fit into a vacuum chamber of only 220×310×200 mm³.
First measurements show the resolution of the new instrument to be
approximately 40 nm.
Y. Takeichi, et al; Rev.Sci.Instr. 87, 013704 (2016); doi: 10.1063/1.4940409
Micromechanical Testing of Silver Nanowires
The small size of specimens often imposes significant challenges for
preparation and testing. To overcome these difficulties, Prof. Horacio
Espinosa’s group at the Mechanical Engineering Department in North-
western University, USA, has developed a microelectromechanical sys-
tem that allows mechanical testing of nanowires (see left figure). The
system is capable of simultaneous four-point electrical measurements,
therefore enabling piezoresistivity and -electricity measurements [1].
In order to mount the silver nanowires, they employed an attocube
nanomanipulator, composed of three stacked ECS3030 positioners, one
for each axis of movement. The nanomanipulator is positioned inside an
SEM chamber and interfaced to the ECC100 piezo-controller outside the
chamber.
[1] R.A. Bernal, et al., Small 10, 725 (2014).