The company’s history dates back to 1992, when it was founded by Peter Laggner jointly with a consortium of partners as M. Braun Graz Optical Systems GmbH, a spin-off from the Institute of X-ray Fine-Structure Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. The technology basis, that led to the spin-off, was the expertise gained by its founders over many years of research in x-ray structure analytics (the Otto-Kratky heritage) and on synchrotrons. Since 2004, Hecus X-Ray Systems is in 100% ownership of Peter Laggner. From its early beginnings, the company has followed a strategy of specialized innovation to provide the nanoanalytical instrumentation market with the latest technology in small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS).

Milestones

• 1992 - SWAXS - First system on the market
• 1997 - EUROSAX - First industrial SAXS for on-line control in surfactant production
• 2003 - System3 - First modular, fully automatic SAXS/SWAXS
• 2005 - SAXeye - First modular 1D and 2D SAXS/SWAXS family
• 2005 - M. Braun - sells PSD detector business branch to Hecus
• 2006 - S3-MICRO - First point-focusing microfocus SAXS technology
• 2007 - GISAXS - First laboratory system for thin-film analysis