Vacuum linear feed through drive using stepper motor and lead screw

In plasma physics a large number of data are needed to be acquired. For that purpose probes along with feed through are moved in and out through vacuum seal. In this paper, implementation of automated vacuum feed through drive is being proposed using stepper motor and lead screw. For the measurements of Spatial Plasma parameters, electric probes are inserted inside vacuum chamber that typically withstand very low vacuum on the order of 10^-4Pa. The probes feed-through must withstand the differential pressure while the probes position is precisely manoeuvred with linear displacement as small as 0.5 mm. The stepper motors are known for application where high accuracy in motion is required. Its winding and control system are simple which makes them popular in motion control. The lead screw is utilized here to convert the rotary motion provided by stepper motor into linear motion. The stepper motor is controlled by software application developed in Lab view.