Yuuka Irie

Development of the miniature hemispherical tilt stage driven by stick-slip motion using piezoelectric actuators

Miniature hemispherical stage has been proposed for improvement of microscopic observation and manipulation. The stage can be rotated in arbitrary direction under a scanning electron microscope. The stage is composed of a hemisphere and three drive units. Besides, the drive unit is composed of a drive ball and two piezoelectric actuators. The drive ball is moved by two piezoelectric actuators, which are orthogonally arranged, in a plane. The movable plane of each drive ball is same as the tangent plane between the hemisphere and each drive ball. The hemisphere on three drive balls is rotated in arbitrary direction by stick-slip motion of each drive ball. The rotational direction of the stage can be controlled by the movable directions of each drive ball. In this paper, the design and fabrication of the small hemispherical stage are described. The rotational directions of the stage are evaluated using a laser autocollimator.

Chemically assisted visualization for fluidic micro manipulation

Researchers and industrials from various fields are looking for reliable manipulators in a liquid environment. In this paper a tool for flow vitalization using chemicals to check the flows around the manipulated as well as a configuration for micro-manipulation are presented. Our research is bio-engineering oriented since we aim at manipulating a bio-target; a cell. It is challenging since these targets can be damaged easily through direct contact and are highly deformable. The successful manipulation would make the observation, selection or alteration of such targets easier, leading to great improvement in the medical and pharmaceutical fields. This paper discuss the primary challenges we face to achieve our goals. As a first step in a bigger project a first prototype was built, tested and analyzed.

Micro gap measurement by vibration mode for needle-type dispenser

A needle-type dispenser, consists of a thin needle and a glass capillary, has been developed for micro-droplet application from high viscosity liquids. A gap, which is a distance between the needle tip and the target surface, is formed in micro-droplet. If the gap is fluctuated, volumes of applied micro droplets are unstable. Therefore, a contact-detection method of the needle-tip droplet and the target surface is proposed. The needle is vibrated by the piezoelectric element through the leaf spring in the proposed method. Contact of the needle-tip droplet and the target surface can be detected from needle-vibration characteristics. In this paper, control of the gap and droplet volume using needle-vibration characteristics is reported.

Development of Piezo Driven Inchworm Micro X-Y Stage and Hemispherical Tilting Positioner with Microscope Head

This paper deals with small piezo driven inchworm X-Y stage for a cell-manipulation in SEM chamber. Generally the electric noise from the moto causes the image destorsion in SEM operation. Thus the piezo driven inchworm small X-Y stage has been designed and fabricated as well as another tilting mechanism has been developed so that a micro pipettee can be implemented onto this tilting stage and manipulate such bio cell samples. Here we also developed a manipulation tool with micro force indicating system by using acoustic modulation technique since the microscopic operation in SEM without tactile information is difficult for the operator to control the tool precisely. On the other hand, a self-walking wafer inspection system is also described. The unique system is composed of the hemispherical manipulator and a self-walking piezo driven stage. This small walking mechanism can move on the glass plate that covers on the micro patterned plate. The hemispherical ball with microscope lens that can be rotated by the manner of stick-slip with three point contact piezo actuators is mounted on this self-walking stage so that the microscope lens can be focused onto the target sample to investigate the defect of micro patterns on the printed plate.