Miniature rotation robot for full-orientation imaging under microscopy

Viewing areas of object with high magnification has been an essential requirement in many fields, including biology, material, industry and so on. Although the current microscopes have enabled to provide high observation resolution up to nanometer scale, the imaging orientation is usually limited to one fixed direction. This paper reports a novel miniature rotation robot for the full-orientation imaging under microscopy. Firstly, the miniature rotation robot is constructed by three miniature motors, including one rotation motor and two linear motors. Secondly, an alignment method and alignment parameters optimization are proposed to align the sample onto the rotation axis of the robot. After the miniature robot with sample stage is put under the lens of the microscopy, the sample is imaged from 360° by rotating the robot continuously. To highlight the versatility of this system, we demonstrate the full-orientation imaging under optical microscopy (OM). Comparing with current techniques, this novel system could provide more image information from full-orientation, which will have significant impacts in defect inspection, material characterization and other related fields.

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