On the stability of Besocke-type scanners

A widespread used construction for the coarse approach mechanism in scanning probe microscopy is the Besocke beetle type. Using stick-slip motion the scanner can thereby be positioned on the millimeter scale horizontally and vertically. This apparent advantage of a high flexibility is bought on the expense of a reduced mechanical stability. Here we present an analysis of the vibrational response of a beetle-type scanner and based on this, a very stable optimized scanner setup. In this setup, shear stack piezoelectric elements are used resulting in very high mechanical resonance frequencies and overall stability. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.