Tracking AFM atomic force microscope suppliers over the past few years has been made difficult by a number of corporate mergers and acquisitions. At last count, there have been at least 26 AFM companies since the inception of the field. There is almost a new AFM company every year! A fairly large number of AFM suppliers in the world.
Commercial AFM atomic force microscopy began in the late 1980s, where the main manufacturers in the US included Gigital Instruments and Park System. Digital Instruments (DI) was started in 1987 by Professor Virgil Elings, professor of physics at UCSB. DI's first product was the analog scanning tunneling microscope Nanoscope I (a digital version appeared a year later called Nanoscope II). Park Scientific Instruments was started in 1988 by Dr. Sang-il Park and Sung Park, who had previously worked with Professor Cal Quate from Stanford University, one of the pioneering authors of the AFM paper. Not long after, Seiko Instruments Japan also started producing their own AFM.
Each of these pioneering companies has undergone several transformations over the years. In 1998, Veeco purchased Digital Instruments (for approximately $150 million!). Veeco is an American company that manufactures process equipment for the semiconductor industry, so getting into the AFM business again makes a lot of sense because AFM is an important tool for quality control. in the field at that time.
What happened to Park Scientific Instruments then? The company was acquired by Thermo Electron in 1998. At that time, Dr. Park returned to Korea and founded another AFM company with the name PSIA (today called Park Systems). Right around that time, Thermo Electron also purchased another AFM company called Topometrix. Thermo Electron merged everything together into a single company called ThermoMicroscopes, which three years later in 2001 was acquired by, you guessed it, Veeco. Thus, Veeco acquired both AFM measuring equipment companies at that time. We'll come back to Veeco later.
What happened to Seiko Instruments? They produced their own AFM but were eventually acquired by Hitachi, and now Hitachi is offering updated versions of this device.
Going back to Veeco, at the time Veeco bought Digital Instruments, some of DI's scientists split off to form their own AFM company called Asylum Research (which just celebrated its 20th anniversary). But even Asylum Research is not immune to acquisition culture as in 2012 it was acquired by Oxford Instruments. It is now officially known as Asylum Research, Oxford Instruments.
And what happened to Veeco? The company is still doing well. But in 2010, they sold their AFM products to equipment company Bruker, and Bruker is still distributing the products today.
That's just the story of the first two AFM companies. There have been different branches that have established AFM supply companies. Stuart Lindsay of Arizona State University founded an AFM company called Molecular Imaging in 1993, which produced the best AFM with environmental chambers and electrochemical chambers. In 2005, Agilent acquired Molecular Imaging. Later, this Agilent product code changed to Keysight Technologies. It is unfortunate that Keysight recently discontinued the AFM business as Molecular Imaging AFM was a true pioneer for AFM that worked in any environmental conditions at the time. AFMWorkshop was also started in 2009 by Paul West (co-founder of Topometrix) and continues to thrive.
Expanding beyond the United States, there has also been quite a bit of activity in developing AFM equipment overseas. Nanosurf, a Swiss company, was founded in 1997 and today produces a wide range of AFMs for a variety of applications. In Germany, JPK (named after founders Torsten Jahnke, Franz Pelzer and Jorn Kamps) was founded in 1999, which produces AFMs specialized for biological measurements. In 2018, JPK was acquired by .Bruker. There are currently major AFM manufacturers in Japan, Korea, Russia, Israel, Turkey, Germany, Switzerland and the US and there is no doubt that the list is growing).
This is not a complete history of the AFM companies. It is only meant to provide some information about the history of this wonderful commercial product. After many mergers, acquisitions, and even shutdowns, according to statistics from a reputable website about AFM in the world, there are nearly 20 companies providing these products and services. Based on recorded historical information, it can be seen that most major AFM manufacturers come from the same origin such as: Bruker, Oxford Instruments or Park System. Currently, Oxford Instruments offers the highest resolution and most modern products available today. Some brands aim for low-cost products such as AFMworkshop.
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