Wednesday 23 March 2011

True Surface Microscopy wins Pittcon 2011 Editor’s Gold Award

The new WITec True Surface Microscopy mode is the winner of the Pittcon 2011 Editor’s Gold Award for the most outstanding new product at the 2011 PITTCON conference and technical exhibition (14-17 March 2011, Atlanta, USA). The Editors Choice Awards is selected by a panel of more than 150 editors registered at Pittcon and honors the most significant and important technological advancement introduced at the exhibition. True Surface Microscopy was chosen due to its ability to simplify the Raman Imaging process on large, rough or inclined samples.

“We are absolutely delighted and nearly overwhelmed to receive such a well respected award” says Dr. Joachim Koenen, Managing Director of WITec. “This is a great motivation to continue our successful philosophy of constantly introducing new technologies to provide our customers with cutting edge technology for their research.”

With nearly 1000 exhibitors, Pittcon is the biggest exhibition for analytical instrumentation in the world and attracts nearly 20 000 attendees from industry, academia and government from 90 countries worldwide. Due to this importance WITec has chosen Pittcon to showcase True Surface Microscopy for the first time in the US. The Editors Award which is presented to the best new products in Gold, Silver and Bronze categories has become an important feature of the exhibition.

WITec's new True Surface Microscopy mode allows confocal Raman imaging guided by surface topography. True Surface Microscopy follows the surface topography with high precision, so that even rough or inclined samples always stay in focus while performing confocal Raman imaging. To achieve this unique capability, the WITec alpha500 series integrates a highly precise sensor for optical profilometry. The topographic coordinates from the profilometer measurement are used to perfectly follow the sample surface in confocal Raman imaging mode. The result is an image revealing optical or chemical properties at the surface of the sample, even if this surface is very rough or heavily inclined. On such surfaces this information was only partially accessible thus far and with the new imaging mode, samples that had previously required extensive preparation in order to obtain a certain surface flatness can now be effortlessly and automatically characterized as they are.