Company Announcements

Oxford Instruments entered into an exclusive worldwide distribution agreement in November 2012 to sell Dune Sciences’ Silicon Half Grids for in situ focused ion beam sample preparation.

WITec named Spectra Research a Canadian sales representative and Advanced Technology Solutions its exclusive distributor for Israel.

Attolight named Quantum Design China a Chinese distributor.

In December 2012, Park Systems named Emphor a distributor for the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.

For the fiscal year ending September 30, 2012, revenue for Carl Zeiss’s Microscopy business increased 5% to €650 million ($844 million).

In January, Canada’s Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine entered into a collaboration with Nikon for the use of the Nikon BioStation CT Integrated Cell Culture Observation System and the development of an algorithm to capture cellular and molecular events.

In January, TESCAN announced the purchase of metal machining company ELFAST, with which it has worked for over 10 years.

Product Introductions

FEI launched a correlative microscopy solution set, including the Tecnai with iCorr fully integrated workflow for incorporating light microscopy into a TEM column; the CorrSight advanced light microscope dedicated to different steps in correlative experiments, which features on-board fixation; and the MAPS software for correlation between the electron microscope image and an image from any other source through alignment.

FEI introduced the Tecnai Arctica transmission electron microscope for structural biology research.

Park Systems introduced in November 2012 the NX20 high-end, large-sample atomic force microscope for failure analysis and quality assurance in the hard disk drive and semiconductor industries.

In December 2012, Molecular Devices released the MetaMorph Super-Resolution System, which enables analysis of object details smaller than 250 nm in fixed and live cells. Featuring synchronized image acquisition and processing, it is compatible with most fluorescence and total internal reflection fluorescence microscopes. The technology is exclusively licensed from the Center for Scientific Research and University of Bordeaux in France.

Oxford Instruments NanoAnalysis launched LayerProbe software for the characterization of thin layers on a substrate. It is an option for the AZtec energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy microanalysis system.

JPK Instruments launched the NanoTracker 2 optical tweezers system, which minimizes user interaction and provides new force clamp and signal multiplexing and de-multiplexing capabilities.