Fiber Alignment Stage, ULTRAlign, Left-Handed, 13 mm XYZ Travel, 8-32 and 1/4-20

Spring-flexures have been touted as the best design method for ultra-precise positioning, but they are inherently susceptible to vibrational disturbances. Their low natural frequency makes them extremely sensitive to everyday lab activities - even walking or talking could disturb your experimental measurements. Touching a flexure component or the optical table can cause changes in the stage position, causing large variations in the output signal. This sensitivity can make fine manual adjustment difficult or sometimes impossible and forces the use of more expensive motion control systems.

Crossed roller bearings, when optimally pre-loaded, are not as susceptible to vibration, giving the ULTRAlign™ far greater stability and stiffness than positioners with flexure designs. With the precision and stability made possible by crossed roller bearing construction, in many cases manual micrometers can be substituted for piezoelectric actuators without degrading positioning performance.

All major structural components of ULTRAlign components, including all brackets and accessory mounts, are constructed of stainless steel. Stainless steel is a far superior material, compared to aluminum, for fiber positioning components and other high stability applications. Stainless steel construction gives ULTRAlign components significantly better overall thermal stability, so that experimental setups maintain their alignment over long periods. For example, typical power fluctuation of a butt coupled single-mode fiber, with a 10 µm spacing, is less than 1.5 dB over a 16 hour period. This is equivalent to 1.5 µm of drift. The robust design of the 562 Series Stages makes them ideally suited for repetitive, high use fiber optic manufacturing and research applications. These stages have greater thermal immunity than aluminum stages due to their higher mass, while larger diameter bearings increase the stiffness of the stage.

561 and 562 Series Tip and Tilt Platforms are compatible with the linear stages to provide two-axis pitch and yaw (θ_Yθ_Z) alignment of fibers to devices. Goniometers are also available to provide roll (θ_X) control about the fiber axis. With up to six degrees of freedom attainable, these high-performance ULTRAlign stages offer a superior fiber optic alignment solution. Shown in the video are 561-GON, 561-GB, and 561-TILT mounted on the 561D-XYZ stage.

The optical height of ULTRAlign 561D-XYZ and 561D-YZ stages can be matched to the optical height of the 562F-XYZ by using the 561-ADPT Adapter. This will allow you to use both series of stages in one system.

Each axis of 562 series stages is equipped with a non-influencing locking mechanism to maintain alignment with sub-micron sensitivity when engaging or disengaging.

The ULTRAlign stages feature specially designed actuator mounting blocks to allow quick and easy actuator changes on any axis, at any time. They are sold without actuators to allow the comprehensive selection of manual or motorized actuators to choose from. 

An easy-to-use dovetail mounting rail on the top surface of ULTRAlign stages provides a single, common reference surface for precise and secure attachment of fiber systems and device holders for alignment from the wide selection of fiber alignment accessories. We offer a wide range of accessories specifically designed for use with the 561 and 562 Series Fiber Alignment Stages, including fiber holders and positioners, GRIN Lens and objective mounts, a variety of platforms, and a vacuum waveguide mount with eight vacuum ports. Shown is 561-GM 3-axis gimbal bare fiber chuck positioner which features 360° roll and ±5° pitch & yaw with sensitivity of 2° in θ_X and 12 arc sec in θ_Yθ_Z, respectively.