AXT and Delmic sign distribution agreement

Scientific equipment supplier AXT has signed an exclusive distribution agreement with Delmic, a Dutch company specialising in fluorescent/SEM (SECOM) and cathodoluminescent/SEM (SPARC) correlative microscopy technology.

The Delmic SECOM system is suited to life science applications and is an add-on system for scanning electron microscopes (SEMs). It integrates a fluorescent microscope into an SEM and allows the user to simultaneously image a specimen using both systems.

“Prior to SECOM, there were no off-the-shelf systems that integrated both fluorescence and scanning electron microscopes,” said Delmic CEO Sander den Hoedt. “This meant that if a researcher wanted to image their specimen using both systems to try and reveal complementary information, it was a very tedious and manual process, and trying to image the same region or cell with both techniques was laborious at best.”

While fluorescence microscopy is popular in the life science arena and due to its ability to reveal functional protein information, the technique lacks the ability to show structural detail. Adding SEM capabilities overcomes this limitation, while the correlative/simultaneous nature enables the researcher to look at the identical cell at the same time. SEMs also introduce the possibility of analysis using other complementary techniques such as BSD, SE and EDX.

“The Delmic SECOM system dovetails nicely with our range of TESCAN scanning electron microscopes and broadens their appeal to the life science sector,” said AXT Managing Director Richard Trett. “We have identified this as a growth area for our business and recently bolstered our sales team with the appointment of Desley Pitcher as national life science sales manager.”

The SPARC system, aimed at the nanophotonics market, provides analytical CL capabilities to SEMs and can provide a full spectrum analysis of the resultant emission to determine the CL intensity. Both systems can be easily installed and removed as required, and feature a user-friendly interface that can control both the microscope and SEM with the ease of an optical microscope