Centering of a Miniature Rotation Robot for Multi-Directional Imaging Under Microscopy

Viewing a particular region of an object with high magnification is essentially significant in both fundamental research and practical applications, however, imaging the sample from multi-direction is still very challenging for current microscopes. Herein, a centered miniature rotation robot under microscopy is presented to achieve multi-directional imaging of small objects. First, the miniature rotatable robot is constructed by three nano motors, including one rotational and two linear-motors. Then, a new centering strategy of neighborhood-window difference is proposed to center the micro/nano sample onto the rotation axis of the robot (error less than 20 pixels). In experiments, the sample is tested to be imaged from multi-direction (360°) by rotating the robot continuously. To highlight the versatility of this system, we demonstrate the multi-directional imaging under both optical microscope (OM) and scanning electron microscope (SEM). Compared with current techniques, this system is able to provide richer morphology information at small scale benefiting from the multi-directional imaging, which is expected to have long-term impacts on microscopy observation, micro defect inspection, nanomaterial characterization and other related fields.