The number of plates grows with increased travel, increasing both stack length and cost as travel increases. Typical piezo stages range in travel from 10 to 200 microns. The most obvious limitation is that of limited travel. Housed piezo stages with internal preload springs are useful positioning actuators, but suffer from several limitations. These limitations can be significantly reduced if the stack is mounted within a housing and if powerful springs are used to produce a high internal preload. Piezo stages by themselves are fragile and unable to produce force in both directions. Depending on the nature of the piezo material (soft versus hard), the applied voltage range is typically either +/- 1000 volts for hard or high voltage stacks, or +/- 120 volts for soft or low voltage stacks. The voltage applied to the piezo stack is distributed to each of the plates within the stack in a parallel configuration. The ratio L/L (change in length to length) for an applied voltage is quite small for a single piezoceramic element, and so most actuators are composed of a large number of thin plates, referred to as a piezo stack. Today, the most common materials used for piezo stages are either barium titanate or PZT (lead zirconate titanate) ceramics. The inverse piezoelectric effect was first discovered by Pierre and Jacques Curie in 1881. Piezo stacks with mechanical amplification.Piezo stages come in a variety of physical configurations that will be discussed in this article: Due to the very low magnitude of this expansion or contraction, all practical implementations of the piezo effect rely upon either reiteration or amplification to produce useful motion. This is an effect in which the application of an electrical voltage to selected materials produces an extension or contraction in that material. There are a number of actuation technologies available to choose from, and one of these makes use of the inverse piezoelectric effect. Limitations of PiezosĪll translation stages require guideways and a means of actuation to produce motion along the guideways. Learn more about our DOF-5 nanopositioning stage for optical imaging applications, and read more about the limitations of piezo stages in the article below. Calculate Digital Microscope Magnification, Field Of View, Image Size, and Resolution.Automated Digital Microscopes & Optics Optimization.Microscope Calculations Explained: FOV, DOF, NA.Automated Microscope Concepts For Fluorescence Imaging.We focus on the motion so you can focus on your technology.