A SUPER-PRECISION LINEAR SLIDEWAY WITH ANGULAR CORRECTION IN 3 AXES

This paper describes a single-axis ultra-high-precision translation st age designed and built using almost exclusively the very-low-thermal-e xpansion ceramic Zerodur. The device is a test-bed for design principl es which may be widely applied for various purposes of different preci sion. It has compensation for pitch, roll and yaw built into the mecha nism through the incorporation of three angular sub-stages. The slidin g carriage stands on five PTFE pads to form a single-degree-of-freedom kinematic constraint giving rectilinear traverse along an optically f lat prism. The translation resolution is at the angstrom level and the angular adjustments are at the sub-are-second level, with some at the milli-are-second level, while possessing coarse adjustments with larg e range. Performance tests using an optical interferometer are reporte d and the stage's behaviour in the elastic and sliding region is studi ed to understand where the limits of the technology lie.