Magnetostrictive Micropositioner for Cryogenic Applications

A magnetostrictive linear-translation mechanism has been designed to function as a micropositioning device at any temperature from ambient down to the temperature of liquid helium (about 4 K). Still undergoing development at the time of reporting the information for this article, this magnetostrictive micropositioner is a prototype of micropositioners for a variety of room-temperature and low-temperature applications in which there are requirements for high stiffness, increments of motion < 1 µm, and long travel (through concatenated multiple small increments). Such micropositioners could be used to make fine position adjustments in diverse scientific and industrial instruments; for example, they could be used to drive translation stages in scanning tunneling microscopes or to move optical elements that must be located at long but precise distances from each other (as in telescopes and interferometers).