Control of an equipment for fabricating periodic nanostructure

This study presents the control for an equipment that is designed for fabricating periodic nanostructures. This equipment can generate the patterns required for nanostructure production using direct writing laser lithography. The equipment incorporates a direct writing laser lithography instrument, a linear motor-driven long-stroke stage (X, Y), a piezoelectric-driven two degrees of freedom (2-DOF) nano-stage (Y, θz), a 3-DOF laser interferometer measurement system, and a system control unit. The working stage of this equipment is combined by a long-stroke stage and a nano-stage; therefore, it can provide long-stroke and high-precision positioning. The feedback signal for this stage is obtained using a 3-DOF laser interferometer measurement system. Integral sliding-mode controllers are used to control the linear motor-driven stage and PID controllers are used to control the piezo-stage for precision positioning. This paper presents the design of the controllers and the control results. Experimental results show that satisfactory writing results can be obtained at a 100 mm/s scan speed.