Company Announcements

In September, TESCAN USA opened an applications and demonstrations lab in Pleasanton, California, for customers in the Western Region of North America.

FEI in September partnered with Oregon Health & Science University to create the Living Lab for Cell Biology, run by Joe Gray, PhD, to advance cancer research and next-generation research tools by visualizing cell structure at a new level of detail. A focus will be the combination of electron microscopy with other imaging techniques.

PI, a manufacturer of nanopositioning, linear actuators and precision motion-control equipment, acquired a majority share in precision-positioning specialist miCos in September.

Park Systems named Elexience a distributor for France.

Lumen Dynamics Group sold its Burleigh product line of piezoelectric micromanipulators and microscope mounting systems for life science research to Thorlabs in October.

Carl Zeiss MicroImaging licensed in October Navitar’s Hoffman Modulation Contrast (HMC) trademark. Zeiss will manufacture objectives, modulators, slit apertures and condensers using the HMC technology, as well as distribute and sell them. HMC technology is a light microscopy contrast method for viewing colorless and transparent biological specimens.

Product Introductions

Bruker introduced in August the XFlash 5060 large-area energy dispersive detector for X-ray micro and nanoanalysis using electron microscopy. It is fully operational at input count rates of up to 750,000 cps.

In October, JPK Instruments launched the NanoWizard3 NanoOptics atomic force microscopy system, featuring the new Vortis Advance SPM Controller and a new fiber-coupled detection unit.

TESCAN launched the FERA3 XMH FIB-FESEM Workstation, a Schottky field emission scanning electron microscope with a fully integrated plasma source–focused ion beam. The system was developed in cooperation with Orsay Physics. It can also be configured with gas-injection systems, nano-manipulators and a variety of detectors.

FEI introduced in October the QEMSCAN WellSite analysis solution, a portable system designed for use in remote locations by surface logging service providers. The system separates and classifies the rock types and properties in rock cuttings, which are found in oil-drilling fluids from wells.

Sales/Orders of Note

In October, Applied Precision, a GE company, announced the 15th installation of its DeltaVision OMX three-dimensional super-resolution microscopy system at McGill University in Canada.