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piezoelectric scanner creep is the continued slow displacement after a step in scanner drive, even when the commanded voltage has stopped changing. The scanner's strain continues to relax, and the motion can resemble a slowly decaying, approximately logarithmic drift. After changing scan size, position or offset, early lines can therefore have stretched or compressed coordinates. Allow settling, avoid large abrupt moves, use a position-sensor closed-loop control system, and compare repeated images. This time-dependent response differs from the direction-dependent piezoelectric hysteresis and from ordinary thermal drift.

Piezoelectricity is linear coupling between mechanical deformation and electrical response in suitable materials. The direct piezoelectric effect produces electrical polarization under applied stress; the converse piezoelectric effect produces strain under an applied electric field. The two responses are linked by the same electromechanical coupling coefficients when conventions and mechanical constraints are specified consistently.

A piezoelectric stress sensor uses the direct response to turn force or vibration into an electrical signal. A scanning probe uses the converse response to move a tip by very small distances, controlling a tunnel junction's separation. The resulting displacement can depend on drive history through piezoelectric hysteresis and can continue changing after a voltage step through piezoelectric scanner creep. These effects motivate calibration and closed-loop control.

A positioner using the converse effect of piezoelectricity to move a probe or specimen. Its calibrated motion can form an atomic force microscopy height image under closed-loop control. piezoelectric hysteresis, piezoelectric scanner creep, travel and control bandwidth limit faithful motion.