Dr. Xianbi Zhao (Fig. 2) is the winner of the Tecnology Transfer Award issued by the Chamber of Industry and Commerce, Braunschweig, Germany. The former PTB (German Institute of Standards) scientist was awarded this coveted prize together with PTB head of Department Micrometrology, Prof. Dr. Günter Wilkening for his achievements in developing ultra-high-resolution, ultra-high-linearity capacitance sensors and NanoPositioners for the purpose of improving Scanning Probe Microscopes.

After joining PI in 1995, Dr. Zhao developed a complete line of capacitance sensors and a line of ultra-high precision multi-axis NanoPositioning Stages featuring integrated six-axis active scans (Fig. 3).