Back to Materials Achievable Strain Resolution plotted against the maximum Actuation Strain for several actuator materials.
Applications require different positioning mechanisms.
Often however, such as in transmission electron or atomic force microscopes, the position must be defined in as small increments as possible. The plot above compares the capabilities of the actuators to act as positioning units. Only order of magnitude estimates are given but the values span several decades so that useful information can be derived. The feasible range in the figure is always the top left, as it is generally always possible to access coarser increment steps over a smaller total range. The smallest controllable positioning increment combined with the maximum strain output of the actuator result in the total number of accessible positions within the system.