The Electron Diffractometer that is powered by key beamline technologies

AXILON’s experts have decades of experience in engineering, design and delivery of a broad variety of scientific instruments. The team combines many detailed technological skills with system’s engineering capabilities. AXILON’s key business is extremely precise instrumentation for various applications, very often in a vacuum environment and under thermal load. Equipment such as high-end X-ray protein crystallography beamlines, scanning X-ray microscopes, diagnostics for particle beams, vibration-free cooling systems are just a few examples of the company’s engineering and delivery portfolio.

With the recent relocation to a new and bigger site in the Cologne area, AXILON takes a leap forward both in terms of quality and size, ready for delivery of up to 100 electron diffractometers per year, and able to manage the expected scaling of the production. The next step ELDICO and AXILON are on is to present a first device. This is planned for Q1/2021. Such an instrument in the hands of leading scientists and industrial researchers as soon as possible would prove the analytical power of ELDICO’s ED machine and, thus, spread the good news. The rest will be dedicated, hard work amongst all involved teams and – of course – a bit of good luck, yet unexpected, breath-taking analytical results, good timing, etc., which every ground-breaking innovation needs.

We conducted an interview with Udo Klein and Wolfgang Diete, who lead AXILON. Among the topics discussed: ELDICO’s promising next level analytical tool in crystallography, AXILON’s motivation to partner up with us and what the future brings in term of scientific innovation in the field of crystallography.

ELDICO: What is your take on Electron Diffraction and its future for analytics?

Wolfgang Diete: Working for and with the leading research groups at the synchrotron beamlines worldwide we came to understand the power of the available high-end analytical tools for structure determination. ELDICO’s Electron Diffractometer enables precise crystallography in yet inaccessible regimes of nano-crystalline samples. The small, lab fitting size of the instrument also provides advantages in speed and costs.

ELDICO: How did you become aware of ELDICO’s new analytical approach, featuring the Electron Diffractometer?

Udo Klein: I had first contact with ELDICO’s founders in PARK INNOVAARE, an innovation and technology industry place adjacent to and powered by the world-renowned Paul Scherrer Institute, PSI, in Villigen, Switzerland. Tim Grüne, principal investigator in Electron Diffraction research, worked at PSI during the time ELDICO was founded and developed in this scientific hub. However, the collaboration between ELDICO and AXILON materialised only much later, when the product concept emerged in more detail.

ELDICO: How can AXILON contribute to ELDICO’s Electron Diffractometer?

Wolfgang Diete: AXILON will focus on tasks related to our core fields of expertise. This is the development of a high-precision goniometer and sample holder – fulfilling the specific functional and operational requirements for ELDICO’s ED-process. Furthermore, we will assemble the ED-instrument, i.e. integrate the frame and all the subsystems up to the moment the whole equipment is ready for delivery and use in the industrial and academic environment.

ELDICO: What do you like most in the cooperation with ELDICO?

Udo Klein: We are excited about this collaboration because there is a perfect match between the ELDICO and AXILON teams and spirit, the common vision of creating game-changing analytical tools for broad application and helping implement high-end, demanding instrumentation technology.