Company Announcements FEI and the Foundation for Fundamental Research of Matter announced a five-year, €2.7 million ($3.9 million) joint nanotechnology research project to develop electron microscopes and focused ion beam (FIB) systems for single-atom imaging and processing of material structures. FEI opened its fourth NanoPort center of technical and applications excellence in Shanghai, China, in January. FEI’s 2007 revenues increased 23.6% to $592.5 million. NanoElectronics, NanoResearch and Industry, NanoBiology, and Service and Components revenues increased 28.5%, 30.0%, 26.7% and 7.2% to 33.5%, 36.2%, 8.8% and 21.5% of revenues, respectively. The company expects slower growth in 2008. Carl Zeiss signed an exclusive license agreement with Dr. Eric Betzig and Dr. Harald Hess for the commercialization of photoactivated localization microscopy, which provides higher resolution for fluorescence techniques. Fiscal 2007 sales for Carl Zeiss’s Microscopy Group declined 5% to €323 million ($431 million) due to reduced research budgets and currency effects that led to competition in the US and Japan. In January, Veeco Instruments appointed Mark R. Munch, PhD, executive vice president, general manager, Metrology and Instrumentation. Previously, he was senior vice president and general manager of Coherent’s Commercial Lasers and Components Group. Veeco’s 2007 sales fell 8.7% to 402.5 million. Scientific Research and Industrial sales rose 5.1% to $116.6 million. Danaher reported that “core revenues” for Leica Microsystems grew in the mid teens in 2007, driven by demand for microscopy, particularly confocal microscopes. Fifty percent of revenues came from products introduced within the last two years. Product Introductions Carl Zeiss SMT AG’s Nano Technology Systems Division introduced the Centra 100 transmission electronic microscope (TEM) for biomedical applications, featuring resolution down to 0.2 nm. ION-TOF GmbH, in collaboration with Calipso BV, launched the Qtac100 low energy ion scattering instrument for chemically and quantitatively analyzing the top atomic layer of a sample JEOL USA introduced the high-throughput MultiBeam scanning electron microscope/FIB instrument that combines micromilling with high-resolution imaging. Agilent released Pico Image atomic force microscope imaging and analysis software package. FEI launched the Titan Krios, a high-throughput, cryo TEM, which provides 3D data for cellular and structural biology applications. It was developed in cooperation with the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry. Leica Microsystems introduced the Leica TCS SP5 X confocal microscope with supercontinuum laser.