Company Announcements

In August, HORIBA Scientific agreed to distribute AIST-NT’s scanning probe microscope products in most of Europe, China and South America.

Bruker joined SEMATECH, a consortium of semiconductor chipmakers, in October.

Product Introductions

FEI introduced in August the Metrios transmission electron microscope (TEM) for semiconductor manufacturing metrology, the Talos TEM for high speed imaging and analysis for materials and life sciences applications, and the Titan Themis TEM for enhanced atomic-scale measurements of material properties.

ZEISS launched the Xradia 810 Ultra X-ray microscope, which operates at 5.4 keV to deliver better contrast and image quality for many materials and higher throughput.

ZEISS introduced a new Crossbeam focused ion beam scanning electron microscope (SEM) series, featuring a new focused ion beam column, consisting of the Crossbeam 340 and Crossbeam 540.

ZEISS launched the next generation EVO series SEMs, featuring improved workflow productivity.

JEOL released in September the JSM-IT300 Series SEM, featuring a new user interface, new electron-optical system. The initial target for annual sales is 200 units. The tungsten low vacuum version extends vacuum pressure range to 10–650 pA.

In August, Oxford Instruments released four new modules for its AZtec Microanalysis System, which enable large area mapping, the use of multiple X-MaxN silicon drift detectors (SDDs) on one SEM, easier relocation of samples in the microscope, and a new refined accuracy capability for electron backscatter diffraction.

In October, Oxford Instruments launched the X-MaxN 100TLE SDD for TEMs, feature a new 100 mm2 sensor.

In September, Leica Microsystems released the Leica SR GSD (ground state depletion) 3D, a widefield microscope that offers 3D super-resolution imaging with resolutions down to 20 nm in the lateral and 50 nm in the axial direction.

Olympus introduced the FluoView FVMPE-RS multiphoton microscope system, which is designed for electrophysiology and optogenetics studies. It captures 438 frames per second at 512 x 32.

In September, Hiden Analytical introduced the Hiden EQS-series of quadrupole MS probes for the measurement of external ions in a vacuum environment. They are specifically for application to secondary ion MS.

Sales/Orders of Note

In September, ZEISS announced the installation of 13 microscopes, including stereo and confocal systems, at Turkey’s Istanbul Medipol University. The University now serves as a reference center for ZEISS.