Nanopositioning techniques present an important capability to support the state-of-the-art synchrotron radiation instrumentation for the APS operations. To facilitate the development of nanopositioning techniques, the APS has equipped laboratories for nanopositioning devices assembly and characterization. The APS nanopositioning support lab is located on the first floor of Building 401.

For mechanical metrology with nanometer and sub-nanometer scale, a special invar frame is constructed on an active pneumatic vibration Isolation table to host a fiber-optics-based multi-axis laser interferometer system with acoustic noise control. This system is not only a diagnostic tool to perform routine inspection or trouble shooting activities for APS user’s nanopositioning devices, but also is a crucial development tool for novel nanopositioning stages design. With collaborations of APS staff from the optics group and other x-ray sciences groups, numerous novel customized precision nanopositioning stages have been designed, assembled, and characterized at the APS nanopositioning support lab, including new flexure stages for the hard x-ray nanoprobe instrument at APS 26-ID, alignment apparatus for multiple Fresnel zone plates intermediate-field stacking at APS 2-ID and 32-ID, multi-dimensional alignment apparatus for linear multilayer Laue lenses test-bed at APS 1-BM, and K-B mirror flexure manipulating stages for sub-50-nanometer scale hard x-ray focusing at APS 34-ID, as well as for K-B mirrors designed for the APS Upgrade project.

The mission of the Nanopositioning Support Lab is to provide engineering and technical support to enable the world class performance of the nanopositioning instrument for APS operations and research as well as for APS Upgrade project.

• * Maintain a world class nanopositioning instrument testing lab to support mechanical metrology needs with nanometer scale for APS Upgrade project and APS x-ray beamline operations and research.
• Provide customized nanopositioning stages design to support XSD scientist’s state of the art technologies that expand the impact of x-ray methodologies.
• Provide leading-edge structural dynamics analysis based on experimental results in nanometer scale to support APS x-ray beamline operations and Upgrade project.
• Pursue novel nanopositioning design, prototyping, and testing for DOE funded R&D project such as Hard X-Ray Free-Electron Laser Oscillators project.
• Pursue national and international collaborations in the nanopositioning research and development through Argonne Strategic Partnership Projects.