Company Announcements

In April, Nikon named Alta Tecnologia en Laboratorios an authorized dealer for Mexico for its Eclipse and SMZ Biological Microscopes, Digital Sight Microscope Cameras and NIS-Elements Microscope Imaging Software.

In May, ZEISS reported that revenue for its Microscopy business group for the half year ending March 31 fell 2.3% to €303 million ($394 million).

Product Introductions

JEOL introduced in April the Mixcroscopy correlative microscope system for scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and optical microscopy. Developed in collaboration with Nikon, it features specimen holders used by both types of microscopes and software for stage data management.

Digital Surf introduced the Mountains 7 software for surface imaging and metrology. It includes the new MountainsMap SEM three-dimensional imaging and metrology product, and the new MountainsMap Hyperspectral product for Raman and FT-IR spectrometers.

Bruker expanded its PeakForce Tapping technology to its Dimension Edge atomic force microscopes (AFMs).

EDAX introduced the TEAM Wavelength Dispersive Spectrometry (WDS) System, which merges its WDS product line into its TEAM Analysis System and features the Smart Focus automated focusing routine.

AppFive and NanoMEGAS released Topspin, a software framework for imaging and analytical transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning TEM experiments in materials research and electronics.

In May, Hitachi High-Technologies released the TM3030 tabletop SEM, featuring improved resolution and a 5kV mode.

Hitachi High-Technologies launched the SU8200 series field emission–SEM, featuring a new cold field emission gun and a new top detector filtering system. The series consists of three models.

Asylum Research introduced in May the affordable MFP-3D Origin AFM, which can be upgraded to an MFP-3D, and features nanolithography, Dual AC Mode and piezoresponse force microscopy modes.

Park Systems launched the Park NX20AFM for nanometrology applications in failure analysis and quality assurance labs.

Xradia, a ZEISS company, introduced the VersaXRM-520 X-ray microscope, featuring a dual-scan contrast visualizer for compositional contrast and a high aspect ratio tomography mode.

Sales/Orders of Note

FEI announced in April the installation of more than 200 automated mineralogy systems (Mineral Liberation Analysis and QEMSCAN automated mineralogy systems).