We present the main results of the performance test campaign of the Mid-Infrared European Extremely Large Telescope Imager and Spectrograph (METIS) Cold Chopper Demonstrator (MCCD). This tip/tilt mirror, which operates at a temperature of 77 K, is one of the critical components in the METIS for the European Extremely Large Telescope. The performance requirements of the MCCD relate to the field of fast and very accurate reference tracking. We discuss the applicability of different high-performance motion control strategies and describe the control synthesis of a repetitive and of a novel hybrid controller. We identified the presence of nonlinearities in the plant, which limits the performance of the hybrid controller. The repetitive controller shows very promising results and can handle the nonlinearities in the system. This experimental phase concludes the MCCD program, which was initiated to verify the feasibility of a high-performance cryogenic tip/tilt mirror at an early stage in the METIS development. Because of the very promising test results, no significant changes to the hardware will be implemented. We believe that minor adjustments will suffice to meet all requirements of the final hardware after integration with the METIS instrument.

We have developed a high speed, miniature scanning probe microscope (MSPM) integrated with a Positioning Unit (PU) for accurately positioning the MSPM on a large substrate. This combination enables simultaneous, parallel operation of many units on a large sample for high throughput measurements. The size of the MSPM is 19 × 45 × 70 mm3 . It contains a one-dimensional flexure stage with counter-balanced actuation for vertical scanning with a bandwidth of 50 kHz and a z-travel range of more than 2 µm. This stage is mechanically decoupled from the rest of the MSPM by suspending it on specific dynamically determined points. The motion of the probe, which is mounted on top of the flexure stage is measured by a very compact optical beam deflection (OBD). Thermal noise spectrum measurements of short cantilevers show a bandwidth of 2 MHz and a noise of less than 15 fm/Hz1/2 . A fast approach and engagement of the probe to the substrate surface have been achieved by integrating a small stepper actuator and direct monitoring of the cantilever response to the approaching surface. The PU has the same width as the MSPM, 45 mm and can position the MSPM to a pre-chosen position within an area of 275×30 mm2 to within 100 nm accuracy within a few seconds. During scanning, the MSPM is detached from the PU which is essential to eliminate mechanical vibration and drift from the relatively low-resonance frequency and low-stiffness structure of the PU. Although the specific implementation of the MSPM we describe here has been developed as an atomic force microscope, the general architecture is applicable to any form of SPM. This high speed MSPM is now being used in a parallel SPM architecture for inspection and metrology of large samples such as semiconductor wafers and masks.