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PI offers a great variety of innovative solutions for testing and fabrication of MEMs and photonics devices. Products range from automated 6D alignment systems for industrial automation to simple devices for laboratory test setups. Piezo drives make possible rapid scanning with submillisecond response.
Applications include automated alignment of collimated fibers or arrays, and test systems for MEMS and multi-channel waveguides. The following pages show but a few examples of the system solutions that PI has developed for the photonics market.
Applications
- High-Precision Photonics Device Alignment
- Collimator Alignment
- Fiber-Array Alignment
- Optical Device Testing
- MEMS High-Precision Positioning/Alignment
- Fiber Alignment
- Laser Tuning
- FBG Writing
- Fiber Stretching
- Optical Switches
- Beam Stabilization
- Micromachining and Assembly
Reasons for Choosing PI
- Broad range of architectures for high-precision positioning and automated alignment in industrial environments.
- Modular hybrid systems with fast piezo scanners and motorized drives for coarse prepositioning
- Software and hardware solutions for throughput enhancement
- PIMotion&Vision™ system with image processing
- 35 years experience developing precision positioners and controllers
- 20 years experience with fiber alignment solutions
- Easy-to-use / easy-to-integrate software
- ISO-9001 certified since 1994
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Automation |
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Rapid XYZ Photometer Nano-Aligners |
PI offers a variety of internal and external photometers with bandwidths up to 5 kHz. High bandwidth means that data is synchronized with the motion, speeding the alignment process. |
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Microrobot meets its industrial cousin: here at the OFC 2002 in the USA. PI‘s F-206 Hexapod, foreground, uses built-in, high-speed, fiber-array alignment routines to optimize photonic device coupling for manufacturing. Pick-and-place of the parts to align is handled by a FANUC industrial robot (background). The entire process is controlled by sequencing software from L-3 Communications Analytics. |
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The F-130 XYZ fiber alignment system allows a full scan of a fiber optic device in just a few seconds; the system features 1 nm piezoelectric resolution and 15 mm travel range. |
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Fast response of closed-loop piezoscanners like the NanoCube® allows rapid mapping of the entire coupling cross-section of optical components for fast localization of features like the point of maximum transmissivity. Full scanning eliminates spurious lock-on to local maxima. |
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6D Microrobots
Variety of hexapod 6D alignment systems, for tasks like industrial micro-assembly of fiber optic devices PI has over 15 years development experience with 6D Hexapod designs. |
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High-Resolution Actuators
Variety of closed-loop linear actuators with travel ranges to 50 mm and resolutions better than 50 nm, for automation of photonics packaging and testing operations. |
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Sophisticated Controllers
An automation platform like the C-880 features built-in fiber alignment routines and can control up to 18 axes. The systems are easy to program and are supplied with a variety of comprehensive software drivers and tools. |
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Hybrid systems
The F-206 HexAlign™ alignment system features 6 degrees of freedom and 0.1 µm minimal incremental motion. An optional high-speed, piezo-driven scanning module with 1 nm resolution is also available. |
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Image Processing
The PIMotion&Vision™ system includes a comprehensive collection of LabView™ drivers for continuous, real-time image processing; it includes basic functions ranging from autofocus, edge adjustment, distance measurement, to complex alignment algorithms in 6 degrees of freedom. Up to 80 axes, switching functions and photometer signals can be included in the processing algorithms. |
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Integration
F-206 HexAlign™ alignment system at a workstation for automated pigtailing of fiber optic devices. Printed with permission from Aries Innovations. |
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Serial and Parallel Kinematics
Stacked, serial kinematics, 6D alignment system vs. Hexapod parallel kinematics system designs: advantages of the Hexapod, such as minimized inertia (all axes acting on a single moving platform) are clearly shown. The reduced moved mass in turn makes for significantly faster response than with serial kinematics. Because there are no moving cables to stacked stages to cause friction, better repeatability can also be achieved. |
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Alignment of NxN Fiber Arrays
Software for automated alignment of fiber arrays with the F-206 system. |
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Virtual Pivot Point— Ideal for Collimator Alignment
The Hexapod controller permits placing the center of rotation anywhere in space, for example, at the beam waist of a laser diode, the tip of an optical fiber or on the optical axis of a fiber array, thus greatly simplifying alignment algorithms. |
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LabView™ Support
LabView™ drivers, including complete routines for scanning and aligning photonics devices, are available to support your automation processes. |
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Specialized Software
Scan of an optical device made with the PI HexControl™ software showing the optical signal intensity distribution PI offers a variety of automatic alignment routines designed to determine the point of maximum optical intensity as quickly as possible. |
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Laser Tuning
Sub-nanometer-resolution, miniature, piezo translation stages with ultra-precise trajectory control are ideal for telecommunications-laser tuning applications. |
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Fiber Stretchers
Piezoelectric tubes can be used to stretch optical fibers in applications such as laser tuning. |
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MEMS
PI alignment systems are ideal for testing and production of MEMS. The “animation” was made with a Polytec scanning laser vibrometer. MEMS from Computer Optics, Inc. |
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FBG Fabrication
PI provides a variety of nanoscanning stages used for writing FBGs that achieve considerably better channel separation. Techniques like InputShaping® can greatly improve the dynamics and precision of scanning operations. |
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Beam Steering
Piezo tip/tilt mirrors are used for beam steering and stabilization, for example in free-space optical data transmission. |
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| Fabry-Perot Filters |
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InputShaping® for Faster FBG Writing |
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In the 80s |
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| Piezo-driven optics positioners achieve subnanometer accuracy and can be used, for example, in Fabry-Perot filters. |
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Left: resonances occurring in and around the nano-scanner can degrade the quality and speed of the dithering process.
Right: the same piezo scanning stage at the same frequency and the same load with InputShaping®. InputShaping® control technology allows fabrication of gratings with higher resolutions, finer spectral lines and better cross-talk supression. |
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PI’s first fiber alignment system with subnanometer resolution was developed in the 1980s. |
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 Standard Products Selection Guide |
