Bruker Corporation is an American manufacturer of scientific instruments for molecular and materials research, as well as for industrial and applied analysis. It is headquartered in

Billerica, Massachusetts Billerica ( ) is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 42,119 according to the 2020 census. It takes its name from the town of Billericay in Essex, England. History In the early 1630s, a Praying Indian ...

, and is the publicly traded parent company of Bruker Scientific Instruments (Bruker AXS, Bruker BioSpin, Bruker Daltonics and Bruker Optics) and Bruker Energy & Supercon Technologies (BEST) divisions. In April 2010, Bruker created a Chemical Analysis Division (headquartered in Fremont, CA) under the Bruker Daltonics subsidiary. This division contains three former Varian product lines: ICPMS systems, laboratory

gas chromatography Gas chromatography (GC) is a common type of chromatography used in analytical chemistry for Separation process, separating and analyzing compounds that can be vaporized without Chemical decomposition, decomposition. Typical uses of GC include t ...

(GC), and GC-

triple quadrupole mass spectrometer A triple quadrupole mass spectrometer (TQMS), is a tandem mass spectrometry, tandem mass spectrometer consisting of two quadrupole mass analyzers in series, with a (non-mass-resolving) Radio-frequency quadrupole, radio frequency (RF)–only quadr ...

(originally designed by Bear Instruments and acquired by Varian in 2001). In 2012, it sponsored the

Fritz Feigl Prize The Fritz Feigl Prize () by the Austrian Society of Analytical Chemistry (ASAC) is named after Fritz Feigl.Günther Laukien Prize.

History

The company was founded on September 7, 1960, in

Karlsruhe Karlsruhe ( ; ; ; South Franconian German, South Franconian: ''Kallsruh'') is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, third-largest city of the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, after its capital Stuttgart a ...

, Germany as ''Bruker-Physik AG'' by five people, one of them being Günther Laukien, who was a professor at the

University of Karlsruhe The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT; ) is both a German public university, public research university in Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, and a research center of the Helmholtz Association. KIT was created in 2009 when the University of Ka ...

at the time. The name ''Bruker'' originates from co-founder Emil Bruker, as Günther Laukien himself was formally not allowed to commercialize his research whilst being a professor. Bruker produced

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, most commonly known as NMR spectroscopy or magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), is a Spectroscopy, spectroscopic technique based on re-orientation of Atomic nucleus, atomic nuclei with non-zero nuclear sp ...

(NMR) and EMR spectroscopy equipment then. In the early 1960s, the company had around 60 employees and was growing rapidly. One of the early success products was the HFX 90 NMR spectroscopy system, with three independent channels and which was also the first NMR system using only semiconductor transistors. In 1969, Bruker launched the first commercial

Fourier transform In mathematics, the Fourier transform (FT) is an integral transform that takes a function as input then outputs another function that describes the extent to which various frequencies are present in the original function. The output of the tr ...

NMR spectroscopy system (FT-NMR) and in the 1970s the company was the first to commercialize a

superconducting Superconductivity is a set of physical properties observed in superconductors: materials where electrical resistance vanishes and magnetic fields are expelled from the material. Unlike an ordinary metallic conductor, whose resistance decreases g ...

FT-NMR. Later, the company would expand their product range with

MRI Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to generate pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes inside the body. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and rad ...

, FTIR and FT- Raman spectrometers and with mass spectrometers. In 1968, Bruker shipped NMR systems to

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...

. After that, demand from the US grew, so Bruker opened an office in

Elmsford, New York Elmsford is a village in Westchester County, New York, United States. It is part of the New York metropolitan area. Roughly one square mile, the village is fully contained within the borders of the town of Greenburgh. As of the 2010 census, th ...

which marked the start of their US activities. In 2008 after a corporate reorganization lasting 8 years, all divisions were merged in a unified Bruker Corporation. Günther Laukien died in 1997; one of his four sons

Frank Laukien Frank H. Laukien (born 1960) is a German-American billionaire businessman and scientist, and president and CEO of Bruker since 2008. As of February 2023, his net worth is estimated at US$2.6 billion. Early life Frank Laukien is the son of Günthe ...

, is currently the CEO of Bruker. Another son, Jörg C. Laukien, also works for the company. Another son, Dirk D. Laukien, is a former company executive.

Acquisitions

Bruker acquisitions include GE NMR Instruments (1992), Siemens AXS (1997), Nonius (2001), MacScience (2002), Vacuumschmelze Hanau (2003), Röntec (2005), SOCABIM (2005), PGT (2005), Keymaster (2006), Quantron (2006), JuWe (2008), SIS (2008), ACCEL (2009), Michrom Bioresources (2011), Skyscan (2012), Prairie Technologies (2013), Oncovision (Preclinical PET imaging business, 2016), Oxford Instruments Superconducting Technology (2016), Hysitron Inc. (2017), XGLab (2017), Luxendo (2017), Alicona (2018), PMOD Technologies LLC (2019), Optimal Group (2022), Neurescence Inc (2022), and MIRO Analytical (majority 2023).

Other

In 1964, the company bought the NMR division of the

Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...

Trüb-Täuber. Bruker made several offers to take over its supplier

Oxford Instruments Oxford Instruments plc is a United Kingdom manufacturing and research company that designs and manufactures tools and systems for industry and research. The company is headquartered in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, England, with sites in the United Ki ...

during the 1970s, but after almost a decade of negotiations, an acquisition was eventually rejected by Oxford Instruments. In 1997, the analytical X-ray division of

Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational technology conglomerate. It is focused on industrial automation, building automation, rail transport and health technology. Siemens is the largest engineering company in Europe, and holds the positi ...

was acquired by Bruker. In 2010, Bruker bought 3 product lines from

Agilent Agilent Technologies, Inc. is an American global company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, that provides instruments, software, services, and consumables for laboratories. Agilent was established in 1999 as a spin-off from Hewlett-Packar ...

, which Agilent had acquired from Varian. These included mass spectrometry and gas chromatography instruments. They have since divested these products to Scion Instruments with the exception of the triple quadrupole In 2012, Bruker bought parts of Carestream Health, including their in-vivo imaging portfolio and related aspects. In 2019, Bruker bought Alicona, known for production of metrology equipment based on

focus variation Focus variation is a method used to sharpen images and to measure surface irregularities by means of optics with limited depth of field. Algorithm The algorithm works as follows: # At first images with difference focus are captured. This is done by ...

, to extend its analytics business in the industrial market. In November 2022, it was announced Bruker had acquired the Mountain View-headquartered miniaturized microscope / miniscope company, Inscopix, Inc.

Products

Bruker develops and delivers a wide variety of professional and scientific analysis devices including mass spectrometers, single-Crystal and powder X-ray diffractometers, X-ray tomography devices, NMR spectroscopy devices,

fluorescence microscope A fluorescence microscope is an optical microscope that uses fluorescence instead of, or in addition to, scattering, reflection, and attenuation or absorption, to study the properties of organic or inorganic substances. A fluorescence micro ...

s, raman spectroscopes, atomic-force microscopes, and

profilometer A profilometer is a measuring instrument used to measure a surface's profile, in order to quantify its roughness. Critical dimensions as step, curvature, flatness are computed from the surface topography. While the historical notion of a pr ...

Notable product use

Bruker products are used globally in a variety of situations. The

National High Magnetic Field Laboratory The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (MagLab) is a facility at Florida State University, the University of Florida, and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, that performs magnetic field research in physics, biology, bioengineeri ...

Florida State University Florida State University (FSU or Florida State) is a Public university, public research university in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and a preeminent university in the s ...

selected Bruker to build the world's first 21.0 tesla FT-ICR MS. The

Total Carbon Column Observing Network The Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) is a global network of instruments that measure the amount of carbon dioxide, methane, carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide and other trace gases in the Earth's atmosphere. The TCCON ( ) began in 2004 w ...

uses high resolution FT-IR spectrometers made by Bruker to measure various greenhouse gases across the globe.

Awards

In May, 2004, Frost & Sullivan selected the Company's Bruker Daltonics subsidiary for their 2004 Product Line Innovation Award for the Life Sciences. Bruker Daltonics received this award for its innovative development of sophisticated mass spectrometers.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Companies based in Billerica, Massachusetts Technology companies established in 1960 Companies listed on the Nasdaq Instrument-making corporations Laboratory equipment manufacturers Research support companies 1960 establishments in West Germany Life science companies based in Massachusetts Companies in the S&P 400