HISTORY

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The Viktualienmarkt in Munich is better known for its traditional food market place than for incubating young hightech companies. But in 2002, scientists of the Center for NanoScience (CeNS) moved into that very well known place right in the heart of Munich , funding the company attocube systems AG. Only a few weeks later attocube systems had installed their production facilities, development labs and offices in that ideal place not far from the physics department of the CeNS.

After its incorporation in 2001 the young company started the development in labs temporarily rented from the Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich (LMU). In February 2002 attocube systems moved to the new rooms at the Viktualienmarkt. Already 15 months after being there, the production facilities were again moved to another, bigger place in the neighbourhood of the today's head office. Totalling approximately 200 square meters and grown to more than 10 the team includes members from diverse backgrounds as semiconductor physics, mechanical engineering, electronic engineering or different fields of microscopy.

Ultra-high precision spatial positioning of objects is a science central to most fields of nano-technology. The vision of providing the research market with a reliable, compact, nano-precise positioning system that is capable of executing sample movement from the sub-nanometer to a centimeter range even in a big variety of environments like UHV, low temperatures or at high magnetic fields was the fundamental driving force for the young founding team.

The attocube systems technology builds on positioning devices with moving parts even able to perform their job at ultra low temperatures down to some Millikelvin. The idea was born in 1995 at the Center for NanoScience of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University. Prof. Khaled Karrai soon realized the great potential for applications in Scanning Probe Microscopy and widely patented that basic technology. One of his former PhD students, Dirk Haft got hooked and started thinking about founding a company.

Nowadays attocube systems offers two principal product lines:

First, ultra-compact nano-precise positioning devices provide linear and rotational movement of samples or probes. Furthermore, nearly all of these positioning stages can be specified for use under extreme environmental conditions such as very low temperatures, UHV and magnetic fields. They are offered in different sizes and out of a variety of materials, and feature an unprecedented variety of applications. This presents a revolutionary advancement for the positioning market, leading to new research in many areas.

The second product line are easy-to-use, highly flexible low temperature Scanning Probe Microscopes like LT-AFM, LT-CFM or LT-SNOM. These systems are based on these reliable positioning devices. Thus, the microscopist can perform in-situ coarse and fine positioning, smooth scanning or automatically focusing any samples in respect to any probes at temperatures down to the Millikelvin range or under high vacuum conditions.

Many of today's industries experience major changes. In the future, it will become more and more important to position probes, samples, small tools or even whole devices on a nanometer scale. The team of attocube systems is prepared for developing devices that meet these new market demands.