Strategic partnership signed for material science
It has been announced that the ZEISS Microscopy business group has signed a strategic partnership agreement with Denmark-based Xnovo Technology ApS, a company that develops innovative software-based 3D X-ray imaging and analysis solutions. The two companies have already been working together over the past two years. This strategic partnership is targeting to further advance and expand the laboratory-based diffraction contrast tomography technique, commercialised as LabDCT, on ZEISS Xradia 520 Versa.
LabDCT was introduced to the market in 2015. The module non-destructively obtains 3D crystallographic information from polycrystalline samples. It enables a handshake between theoretical and practical worlds for predictive materials design. Combining grain orientation information with microstructural features such as cracks, porosity, and inclusions opens new possibilities for characterising damage, deformation and growth phenomena in 3D materials science. This technique has previously only been available at synchrotron imaging facilities and can now be used in the laboratory.
The development of new materials needed in frontiering fields such as metals for additive manufacturing, alloys for bioengineering, or the high-strength-to-weight materials required by aerospace and automotive industries, requires the use of an expanding set of new research techniques.
Erik Mejdal Lauridsen, CEO and founder of Xnovo, a spin-out of the Technical University of Denmark, said: "We felt we could really accelerate the field of materials science by commercialising our discoveries. Through our partnership with ZEISS, our aspirations are finally becoming a reality."
Lourens Steger, Head of the product center X-ray microscopy at ZEISS, noted: "At ZEISS, we work diligently to understand the job our customer needs to do and invest in innovation to ensure their success. We look forward to working with Xnovo to develop important new analytical capabilities for our 3D X-ray microscopes."