Dectris Ltd (,
French,
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance languag ...
, ) is a Swiss company producing
photon counting
Photon counting is a technique in which individual photons are counted using a single-photon detector (SPD). A single-photon detector emits a pulse of signal for each detected photon. The counting efficiency is determined by the quantum efficienc ...
X-ray detectors. These are used in
synchrotrons worldwide as well as in laboratory imaging.
History
Dectris was founded in 2006 as a spin-off company by Christian Brönnimann, a researcher at the
Paul Scherrer Institute
The Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) is a multi-disciplinary research institute for natural and engineering sciences in Switzerland. It is located in the Canton of Aargau in the municipalities Villigen and Würenlingen on either side of the Ri ...
, and three colleagues, Eric F. Eikenberry, Markus Näf, and Petr Salficky. In 2007, the company sold its first detector unit in the
PILATUS series. In 2008 the MYTHEN detector was introduced followed by the EIGER in 2015.
In January 2022, Christian Brönnimann, who had been CEO since 2006, stepped down and Matthias Schneebeli (CTO since 2017) became the new CEO.
Products
Dectris mainly develops and produces
hybrid photon counting X-ray detectors. Three different product lines have been launched which all take their names from Swiss mountains,
Pilatus,
Mythen
The Grosser Mythen (also ''Grosse Mythe'') is a mountain in the Schwyzer Alps of Central Switzerland. The mountain lies in the canton of Schwyz, to the east of the town of Schwyz, and to the south of the village of Alpthal in the valley of the ...
, and
Eiger
The Eiger () is a mountain of the Bernese Alps, overlooking Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen in the Bernese Oberland of Switzerland, just north of the main watershed and border with Valais. It is the easternmost peak of a ridge crest that extends ...
. All detectors use
direct detection, meaning that X-ray photons are directly converted to electron-hole pairs instead of using visible light as an intermediary. This improves efficiency significantly and enables much higher count rates. Nearly two thirds of all structures in the
Protein Data Bank
The Protein Data Bank (PDB) is a database for the three-dimensional structural data of large biological molecules such as proteins and nucleic acids, which is overseen by the Worldwide Protein Data Bank (wwPDB). This structural data is obtained a ...
have been solved using dectris detectors, legacy CCD detectors making up most of the rest.
In recent years Dectris has developed and started producing electron detectors.
References
{{reflist
External links
Official website
Technology companies of Switzerland
Swiss companies established in 2006
Swiss brands