All other stages are direct-drive while the Luminos I5005 uses a patented Ratio Drive™ on the X & Y axes. A standard micrometer, which has about 1/3 the backlash of a differential micrometer, is further improved by the 5x Ratio Drive™ resulting in a backlash of only 100 nanometers and an incredible single-sided resolution of just 5 nanometers! The yaw, and pitch axes use similar leverage techniques to transform linear motion from the actuator into extremely precise rotational movements at the output.

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Conventional stacked stages have separate frames with each frame simply mounted on the output of the previous stage. This results in the stiffness at the micrometer being degraded by the lack of stiffness between the mounting reference and output of each stage below it. Hand forces on the micrometer are then easily transmitted directly to the output causing the the alignment to wander and typically results in a adjust, release, and wait cycle by the operator. The I5005 consists of only 2 frames. The Z stage is one frame while all the other micrometers are anchored to a shared fixed frame that is attached directly to the output of the Z stage. The Z stage is exceptionally stiff and therefore is not a factor. By sharing a common rigid frame, forces exerted on the micrometers by the operator during adjustment are transmitted directly to the base instead of to the output. The operator can then quickly align without letting go.

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The I5005 is extremely vibration and temperature insensitive. In an ordinary lab without an optical table, normal temperature fluctuations result in only 0.03 dB variation with no drift in a typical singlemode alignment for over a month.  See Positioner Stability for more information.