DOF-5 focusing stages offer the following features and benefits:

Hardware Agility:

• Unique, compact, integrated motion stage and miniaturized controller, with a single combined power and communications cable
• Easy integration; with minimized footprint, complexity, and lower parts count inside your instrument
• Integrated solution for multiple stages     

Performance:

• Precise, high-performance motion control – and supporting software tools – for the most demanding applications
• Compelling price-to-performance ratio, achieved using an innovative and patented system architecture
• Long-life: quiet brushless linear motor, non-contact encoder, crossed-roller linear bearings

Dependability:

• Reliability and confidence of an experienced supplier
• More than 22,000 motion systems shipped to Fortune 500 companies worldwide
• On-time delivery of over 95%

Integrated Solution 

• By including the encoder, interpolator, drive, and motion controller electronics all within the stage, the DOF-5 is able to achieve high in-position stability and avoid noise errors introduced by external cabling, poor grounding, and other detrimental influences on the feedback signal
• Ecosystem of DOF-5 objective focusing stage and SmartStage XY provides an integrated control solution for your applications
• Simplify software architecture with common API between X,Y, and Z stages

Precision Linear Motor

• The DOF-5 includes stiff crossed roller bearings and brushless linear servo motor actuation, providing higher servo bandwidth and a better response for optical microscopy.
• The DOF-5 design is covered under U.S. Patent 10,367,436.

“Provides all the benefits of piezo in terms of speed and resolutions… with none of the limitations such as short travel range and ringing at a lower cost.”

Limitations of Piezoelectric Motors and Flexure Bearings

• Nanopositioning stages with piezoelectric motors and flexure bearings are expensive, have restricted travel, and stiffness issues.
• The DOF-5 Objective Focusing Stage has been engineered to overcome these performance drawbacks, offering greater travel (5 mm) and higher bandwidth (> 225 Hz) at a fraction of the cost.
• By embedding the servo drive and motion controller within the stage, we have removed complex cabling and reduced the overall system cost to typically 50-60% less than competing offerings, while still maintaining equivalent or better performance.
• The DOF-5 can also be connected directly to an Autofocus system for easy integration.

What is “Nanopositioning”?

In the not-too-distant past, the precision tail-end of the bell curve in automation was often colloquially referred to as the “micropositioning” segment of the market. The term microposition derives from the fact that high-precision positioning systems were routinely operating at the micron level. Manufacturers in this space were specifying key system attributes such as Bi-directional repeatability, Accuracy, and Stability in units of microns. Such systems sufficiently filled industry demands from Life Science and Diagnostics, to Non-contact metrology, to the Tech sectors of Semiconductor, Data Storage, and Flat Panel Display.

Fast forward to our present day and no longer are such systems sufficient. Evolving industry needs in microscopy and biotechnology demand evolving levels of performance from precision positioning equipment manufacturers. As the features of interest across markets become smaller, the ability to position at the nanometer level becomes a market imperative. Dover Motion is proud to lead at the cutting edge of this new frontier of nanopositioning with groundbreaking products such as the revolutionary DOF-5 SmartStage™ Z axis focusing system and SmartStage Linear series single axis and XY systems.

This newest generation of products with repeatability, stability, and step-settle performance measured in nanometers more than addresses foreseeable industry needs. So, whether your cutting-edge instrument development is based on traditional diffraction-limited wide-field fluorescence microscopy; an increased resolution approach such as Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy; or a super-resolution technique such as Structured Illumination Microscopy, Dover Motion’s aforementioned DOF-5 SmartStage Z axis stage is ready to provide all the objective nanopositioning performance required.

Advantages for Nanopositioning Microscopy

The use of a dedicated Z axis stage based on piezo actuators is currently the most commonly applied technique for high-performance and high-precision imaging; however, piezo-driven actuators have a number of very distinct limitations—despite their current dominance of the automated microscope focusing market.

The table below highlights the limitations of piezo stages and compares them with the features of our new DOF-5 objective focusing stage.

Performance Plots

Fast, Accurate, and Repeatable 100 nm Moves

The above staircase plot displays position vs. time for ten consecutive 100 nm upward moves, followed by ten consecutive 100 nm downward moves. The data for the plot was taken at a 10-kHz sample rate, using a laser interferometer, and a plane mirror mounted at the base of a 300-gram objective. This staircase plot demonstrates the DOF-5’s ability to execute the very fast, accurate, and repeatable small moves typical in focusing applications.

High Throughput Steps with Very Low Jitter

The above zoom-in on a single 100 nm step from the staircase plot demonstrates the high-throughput focusing capabilities of the DOF-5 Z axis stage. In the above move, with an initial position stability of < +/- 3 nm, the objective performs a 100 nm step, settling into and remaining within a ± 7 nm window, in under 3 msec.