Native digital support for 4-quadrant scan piezo tubes

Many Scanning Tunneling Microscopes use a design where the outside of the piezo tube has four quadrants. In this case, the Z Signal is often equally summed into all four segments for height control. Up to now in the Nanonis STM Control System, that has been achieved by a small hardware box inserted between the low voltage electronics (SC5) and the high voltage amplifier (HVA4). 

With the BP5e that hardware component is no longer necessary as the Z-signal can be digitally summed into the X and Y signals. 4 low voltage SC5 outputs are then connected to the HVA4 inputs.

Replacing the hardware adapter results in significantly lower drift and lower noise, as well as higher precision.

This functionality can be activated or deactivated by a switch in the Nanonis Mimea software, meaning that it is possible to switch between 5-quadrant or 4-quadrant operation.

The add-on requires software R9633 or newer and is compatible with all BP5e.