Annual Report 2007 - The Australian Nanotechnology Network

Figure 5: One of the four hinge plates on the mirror manipulator. The design is modular
so that a single hinge plate model works in all eight positions across the skimmer and
mirror manipulators.
In addition to hardware assembly, a suite of control software was developed to control
both the skimmer and mirror manipulators and the scanning aperture. The manipulators,
developed by Dr Robert Bacon during his PhD, are based on two pairs of two-axis hinge
plates that use flexure hinges to allow rotational motion about two axes per hinge plate.
The use of flexure hinges eliminates backlash and allows for very precise and
reproducible positining within a few microns, an essential feature for both the skimmer
and mirror in the microscope. A hinge plate with associated flexure hinges is shown in
Figure 5. Since the manipulator is based on hinges, the natural motion is that of
rotations about the four axes available. However, the experimental motion typically
consists of translation with some additional rotational positioning, where the coordinates
are specified relative to the beamline axis. The developed software allows adjustment
and positioning in both sets of coordinate systems, with automatic scanning along
specified axes for both the skimmer and mirror manipulators.
Figure 6: A wireframe model of the
nanotube geometry modeled using
Lorentz3D.
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