Company Announcements

JEOL announced in October 2013 the integration of Gatan’s 3View Serial Block Face Imaging System, an automated sectioning and image capture system, with its JSM 7100F field emission–scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to enable imaging of 3D structures.

In November 2013, Zeiss granted a license to patents relating to LED fluorescence excitation in microscopy to Lumencor.

Bioaxial, a developer of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy for the extended imaging of live cells at a resolution of less than 100 nm, completed a €1.9 million ($2.7 million) equity investment in November 2013.

As part of a realignment of its Executive Board responsibilities, effective January 1, Carl Zeiss, President and CEO Dr. Michael Kaschke now oversees both the Microscopy and the Industrial Metrology groups.

Product Introductions

Leica Microsystems introduced in October 2013 the TCS SP STED (stimulated emission depletion) 3X microscope, which achieves resolutions below the diffraction limit in lateral and axial directions. It is based on the TCS SP8 confocal microscopy platform.

FEI launched the Tecnai Femto ultrafast EM, calling it the first system to combine femtosecond time resolution with nanometer spatial resolution. The instrument can also be operated in conventional continuous-beam transmission EM (TEM) mode.

FEI released the ExSolve high-throughput sample preparation workflow for TEM analysis by semiconductor and data storage manufacturers. It can prepare 20 nm thick site-specific TEM lamellae on whole wafers.

In November 2013, Phenom-World released ParticleMetric application software for the Phenom desktop SEM. It allows users to gather morphology and particle-size data for many submicron particle applications.

Park Systems introduced high speed QuickStep SCM (scanning capacitance microscopy) for use with the Park NX atomic force microscopy (AFM) series.

In November 2013, Zeiss introduced the ELYRA p.1 module for PALM (photoactivated localization microscopy) in 3D for endogenously expressed photo-switchable fluorescent proteins. It combines super-resolution structured illumination microscopy and PALM in one system and can be integrated with the LSM 710 or LSM 780.

In December 2013, Agilent Technologies introduced the 7500 AFM, which achieves atomic resolution imaging with a 90 m closed-loop scanner.

TESCAN introduced a new EBIC (electron beam induced current) detector for focused ion beam–SEM that enables 3D EBIC analysis.

JPK Instruments launched the NanoWizard ULTRA Speed AFM, with scanning speeds of greater than 100 Hz line rate.