Displacement amplification and differential actuation in piezo driven nanopositioners

•Amplifies displacements of PZT stacks by a factor of 12 along horizontal axes.•Amplified output displacement is bilateral in differential actuation (DA) mode.•Output travel range is doubled w.r.t. to non-differential actuation modes.•DA improves linearity of input-voltage-output-displacement characteristics.•DA makes hysteresis curve symmetrical w.r.t. the ideal non-hysteresis line.•Total harmonic distortion of output displacement is considerably reduces by DA.•Small cross-coupling at output stage versus largely misaligned input displacements.