A high-precision, magnetically levitated positioning stage: Toward contactless actuation for industrial manufacturing

High accuracy positioning stages with multiple degrees-of-freedom, or microsteppers, are ubiquitous in industrial manufacturing. These devices are used in probing and inspection systems, in the as-sembly of disk drive heads, and in semiconductor manufacturing. In semiconductor manufacturing, microsteppers are employed to accurately move silicon wafers in the photolithography process. T