The Company
Celebrating 30 years experience within the Nanomechanical Industry
In 2018 Micro Materials Ltd celebrated 30 years within the nanomechanical industry. Established in 1988 Micro Materials has continually been at the forefront of innovation, with our pioneering approach leading to three world firsts:
- The first commercial nano-scale impact tester, for erosive wear, toughness and contact fatigue.
- First commercial high temperature nanoindentation stage.
- The first liquid cell, allowing the testing of samples which are fully immersed in a fluid.
Providing innovative, versatile nanomechanical test instrumentation and responding to developments in applications in response to customer and market requirements. The integrity, reliability and accuracy of our equipment is paramount, as is our relationship with our users.
Company Overview
History
In 1988, Dr Jim Smith left his position as Manager of Engineering Physics at Eaton Corporation in Boston to develop the NanoTest. The foundation of the NanoTest was based on research carried out at Lancaster University in the UK. Micro Materials is now a majority-owned subsidiary of Spantech Products Ltd.
Location
The headquarters of Micro Materials are located in Wrexham, a well-connected region of north east Wales in the UK. All research and manufacturing is carried out from their custom-built facility, which is equipped with a demonstration suite. The company has many support bases outside of the UK including the US, Germany, Russia, Singapore, Malaysia, China, India and Korea.
Global reach
Micro Materials are proud to work with a long-established network of global distributors. Many of these distributors have worked with us for 20 years or more and have excellent technical knowledge of the instrument and its wide range of capabilities.
Existing customer base
Micro Materials have over 350 systems worldwide, with many organisations having multiple systems. Micro Materials work with the most prestigious groups in academic and industrial research, including Cambridge, MIT, Oxford, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and SIMTech. We endeavour to establish close collaborative links with our customers, which allows the company to respond quickly to market requirements and emerging research areas.
Evolution of the NanoTest system
The first NanoTest was sold to a group in Paris in 1992. Over the next decade, several iterations of the instrument were developed, including the NanoTest 300, NanoTest 550 and NanoTest 600. In 2006, the NanoTest NTX was released, which saw a large improvement in system performance and stability. In 2012, we introduced the NanoTest Vantage, which provides the user with a high performance, modern instrument, designed to be easy to use, yet flexible to allow high level experiment design.
In 2011/12, a vacuum compatible version of the NanoTest was developed in order to extend the high temperature capabilities of the NanoTest. The first prototype system was sold to the University of Oxford, which led to the development of our fully integrated high vacuum system, the NanoTest Xtreme.
The current version of the NanoTest operating software, Platform 5, expands the capabilities of the Vantage and Xtreme to ensure the NanoTest remains a leading, state-of-the-art nanomechanical testing instrument.
Company values
We focus on listening to our customers and developing solutions to push the boundaries of nanomechanical testing. We aim to maintain an imaginative development program as well as providing our customers with first class service and applications support.
Staff group
The Micro Materials staff group consists of physicists, mechanical engineers, materials scientists and chemists, together with administration and finance teams. Staff turnover is very low, ensuring continuity of quality in processes and instruments.