Monolithic piezoelectric in-plane motion stage with low cross-axis-coupling

We present a rotary dither stage that can provide rotation stimulus to objects mounted on it. The stage is in planar form-factor allowing compatibility with planar packages that can house both the stage and the inertial sensor. We used laser micromachining of bulk PZT-4 plates to form PZT beams to achieve monolithic integration of lateral actuators and flexures. This process enables high-aspect ratio PZT beams (500μm thick, 150μm wide) resulting in high out-of-plane stiffness, helping in reducing the out-of-plane motion to parts-per-thousand of the inplane motion. The micro stage technology opens up a new design space of 100-micron scale lateral bimorphs for mm-scale stages with large motion. A dither stage was designed and fabricated that can achieve in plane dither of ~ 1.2 millidegree/V and dither rates up to 1800 degree/s. Low dither rates of 20-60 millidegree/s are demonstrated and measured.