7 July 2006
New Secretary for UKSAF

14 March 2006
HRH Duke of Kent visits Millbrook

4 November 2005
Millbrook Extends Versatility of MiniSIMS Instrument
Time of Flight Option Launched at International SIMS Conference

31 July 2005
Millbrook welcomes the Foreign Secretary and the Chinese Ambassador

21 April 2005
Millbrook receives Queen’s Award for International Trade

6 September 2004
Product Range Extended to Include Mechanical Testing

27 June 2003
MiniSIMS at launch of NPL Technology Applied Scheme

6 February 2003
Millbrook’s MiniSIMS Wins Smart Achievement Award

7 July 2006

New Secretary for UKSAF

Dr John Eccles, Commercial Director and one of the founders of Millbrook, has been elected Secretary of the UK Surface Analysis Forum (UKSAF).

The UKSAF holds a one day meeting every January and July. The members are from both academic and industrial organizations, with a common interest in the techniques used for the chemical and physical characterisation of surfaces, thin films and coatings.

As well as organising the biannual Meetings, the Forum supports other events. It assists in the preparation of Standards for surface analysis. It also aims to encourage younger scientists in the field, for example by holding a regular Young Surface Analyst Competition.

Further details about UKSAF and forthcoming Meetings can be found at www.uksaf.org.

14 March 2006

HRH Duke of Kent visits Millbrook

Millbrook Scientific Instruments PLC of Blackburn received a visit from HRH The Duke of Kent on Tuesday 14 March. Millbrook Instruments Limited was a winner of the Queen’s Award for Enterprise last year for growing sales by 250% in three years.

The Duke, accompanied by the Vice Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire, was welcomed by Dr Peter Stefanini, Millbrook’s Executive Chairman, who began by giving a brief overview of the company outlining its range of innovative scientific instruments. The Duke was then introduced to Dr John Eccles, Director and joint founder of Millbrook, who showed the Duke how to operate the MiniSIMS, the unique instrument which has been chiefly responsible for the Company’s global sales growth. In a practical demonstration of the instrument’s effectiveness in surface quality control, the Duke carried out an examination of hypodermic needles to check whether they had been correctly coated with a surfactant layer only nanometres thick.

Peter Vohralik, Technical Director, explained how the instruments are manufactured and outlined the Company’s development programme, which in 2006 has already created several new models for sale. Sales Director, Dr Nick Long, explained how demand for the Company’s products was driven by industry’s increasing requirement to move away from monolithic materials to materials which incorporate performance-enhancing coatings, to reduce costs, make products lighter as well to achieve completely new properties. Citing car headlamps, which over a number of years have changed from solid metal to multi-layer plastic, as an example, it was shown how important it was to ensure that nanoscale coatings had been correctly applied at the right thickness. Millbrook’s instruments provide the means for analysing and measuring such coatings both for quality control in existing products and development of new products.

The Duke met other staff at Millbrook including Richard Greenslade, Software Manager, who demonstrated the company’s latest software for three dimensional analysis of surfaces. There was also a brief reception attended by the Mayor, Mayoress and Deputy Chief Executive of Blackburn with Darwen.

Before leaving, His Royal Highness unveiled a plaque to commemorate his visit to Millbrook.

4 November 2005

Millbrook Extends Versatility of MiniSIMS Instrument
Time of Flight Option Launched at International SIMS Conference. Manchester, UK

Millbrook has launched a new Time-of-Flight (‘TOF’) version of its desktop MiniSIMS analytical device.

The MiniSIMS, based on Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS), is an automated, self-contained, mobile instrument, which provides a comprehensive and low cost route to surface chemical characterisation in three dimensions. The existing quadrupole MiniSIMS instrument scans for ions of each mass in turn, whereas the new TOF version measures all masses simultaneously – enabling faster analysis and over 100 times more efficient use of the sample in a typical analysis. This is especially important when the quantity of sample is limited or in cases where there is only one opportunity for analysis – when examining a small isolated defect, for instance.

By detecting all available information at once, the new TOF MiniSIMS is more effective in identifying unexpected contaminants, allowing failure analysis as well as quality monitoring in a production environment. The TOF version is also much more powerful for the analysis of organic materials (including polymer additives and biomolecules) and analysis of small areas (such as the features on electronic devices).

The TOF MiniSIMS was launched at the SIMS XV Conference in Manchester, UK in September. This four day international conference is held every two years and attracts over 350 academic and industrial delegates from all corners of the globe. Interest in the TOF MiniSIMS has been strong, with Millbrook progressing numerous conference enquiries from as far as Japan, Singapore and the US West Coast.

Dr. John Eccles, Commercial Director and co-founder of Millbrook Instruments Limited said: “The SIMS conference series is a truly international discussion forum for the community, and is held in a different part of the world each time. It is fitting that we chose SIMS XV in Manchester to launch the TOF MiniSIMS when this major event was being held less than 30 miles from our Blackburn facility where the MiniSIMS was first developed.”

For further information about the ToF MiniSIMS, click here (3Mb)

31 July 2005

Millbrook welcomes the Foreign Secretary and the Chinese Ambassador.

The Foreign Secretary, The Right Hon Jack Straw, and the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China in the UK, Zha Peixin, visited Millbrook Scientific Instruments (AIM: MBK) on Friday 22 July at the Blackburn Technology Centre in Lancashire. The Ambassador was accompanied by his wife and the First Secretary from the Chinese Embassy.

Dr Peter Stefanini, Executive Chairman of Millbrook, welcomed the guests and made a presentation of Millbrook’s business, highlighting the company’s impressive sales growth in export markets, which led to a Queen’s Award for Enterprise for Millbrook Instruments Ltd earlier this year. Millbrook’s 150 customers include international blue-chip companies and some of the world’s leading universities, where the instruments are used for both development and quality control in such diverse applications as electronics, medical technology, magnetic storage, and coated glass, metals and other materials.

A strong global movement towards surface-engineered products – materials with ultra thin coatings – and therefore the need for instrumentation to characterise these coatings, has been identified as the main driver for the growth of the business. Dr Nick Long, Sales Director, illustrated this by reference to a new type of headlamp reflector in which metal had been replaced by an aluminised polymer system.

Dr Stefanini drew attention to the importance of the Chinese market to Millbrook’s export growth. To date ten instruments have been sold both to industry and to universities across China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Nanchang, Wuhan, Lanzhou, and Chongquin. The guests were given a tour of the production unit by Technical Director, Peter Vohralik, where they received a demonstration of the unique Millbrook MiniSIMS. The party were also introduced to engineers from a Chinese semiconductor manufacturing plant, which recently purchased a MiniSIMS from Millbrook. By coincidence, the engineers were on site in Blackburn to receive training for the instrument.

Afterwards a discussion took place over lunch. Mr Straw was particularly interested in the reasons why the Company had chosen Blackburn to locate its business. Dr John Eccles, Commercial Director and one of the founders of Millbrook, explained that the Blackburn Technology Centre had been an ideal place to site a start-up. The availability of small units at reasonable rents with back –up office facilities and the helpful attitude of the Council had been the key factors in Millbrook’s decision to become one of the centre’s first three tenants, shortly after the company was established in 1995.

Ambassador Zha was curious to know what Millbrook considered to be the greatest barriers to setting up a business from scratch. He was told that the two aspects Millbrook had found the most challenging were sourcing development funds to build the business and establishing credibility with potential customers.

Commenting on the visit, Dr Peter Stefanini, said: “We were honoured to welcome such distinguished guests to Millbrook and to be able to highlight the success of our company. The Chinese market offers a huge export opportunity for Millbrook and our discussions during this visit have resulted in a number of useful new contacts.”

21 April 2005

Millbrook receives Queen’s Award for International Trade

Millbrook Instruments Limited today announces that it has received the prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the International Trade category. Millbrook Instruments Limited is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Millbrook Scientific Instruments plc (AIM:MBK).

The International Trade category of the Queen’s Award recognises that, during the last three years, Millbrook has demonstrated substantial growth in overseas earnings and commercial success, to levels that are outstanding for the goods, services or size of business concerned. This achievement has already received praise from UK Trade & Investment, who presented Millbrook with an award for ‘outstanding achievement in international trade’ less than a month ago.

Up to the year 2001, Millbrook (then comprising just 3 people) focused its marketing activity on the UK. In 2001, however, the company turned its attention to the global market in order to widen the MiniSIMS user base and establish a dominant position in this emerging niche market. To cope with the increasing demand, the Millbrook team has now grown to 11 people, who are responsible for technical sales, production, testing, installation and after-sales service of the equipment. This approach has proved highly successful – sales have risen by 265% over the last three years and over 80% of sales revenue is now generated from exports.

Dr John Eccles, Millbrook’s Commercial Director who has spearheaded the export programme, said: “The unique nature of our MiniSIMS has meant success even in a country such as Japan which is home to many of the world’s top scientific instrument manufacturers. However, developing and maintaining a satisfied customer base across Europe, North America and Asia would not have been achieved without the sustained hard work and commitment of everyone involved.”

Commenting on receiving the award, Dr Peter Stefanini, Executive Chairman of Millbrook Scientific Instruments plc said: “We are honoured for Millbrook to be given such a prestigious accolade. It reflects a strong performance from a team of highly talented people.”

6 September 2004

Product Range Extended to Include Mechanical Testing

Millbrook Scientific Instruments PLC (Millbrook) has completed the acquisition of Micro Materials Limited (MML), a specialist in nanotesting instrumentation.

MML was founded in 1988 by Dr Jim Smith, a leading figure in research on the mechanical properties of thin films. The acquisition of MML takes Millbrook into another key sector of nano-metrology, namely the measurement of the mechanical properties of thin films, using nanoindentation, scratch testing and impact testing.

MML's state of the art technology gives it major advantages over the competition. In nano-impact testing, for example, it employs unique patented technology. It has also developed systems that can operate at temperatures up to 500 degrees C - well above the temperatures at which competitive systems can function. Applications areas include: automotive, biomedical, ceramics, microelectronics, polymers, and thin film adhesion. The versatility of the MML system makes it particularly attractive to research laboratories; with its modular design, customers can extend the range of capabilities by purchasing further MML bolt-on units.

This acquisition follows the purchase of Aquila Instruments Limited in March 2003. The Millbrook Group is now active in three main sectors of nanotechnology: chemical surface measurement (MiniSIMS), optoelectronic measurement of thin films (Aquila nkd) and mechanical nanotesting (MML).

Further details on the acquisition can be found in the Investor Information section of this website.

6 February 2003

Millbrook’s MiniSIMS Wins Smart Achievement Award

Millbrook Scientific Instruments today won a Smart Achievement Award from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) for its MiniSIMS instrument. Millbrook was one of just 11 companies, out of hundreds of previous Smart award winners, selected for successfully turning its DTI funding into a fully-fledged commercial product.

The Smart Achievement Award was presented to Dr Peter Stefanini, Executive Chairman of Millbrook, by Adam Hart-Davis, TV presenter and historian, at an award ceremony held at the British Library in London.

Peter Stefanini, Executive Chairman of Millbrook Scientific Instruments, said:

“Without the Smart awards received when Millbrook was an embryo company we would not have got off the ground. I am therefore extremely grateful to the DTI for that support. This Achievement Award recognises the company’s effective use of the money received in designing and building a world beating instrument – the Millbrook MiniSIMS.”

Millbrook was granted two Smart awards. The first award for £45,000 was obtained in 1995, and enabled the company to develop a prototype instrument by 1997. A further DTI SPUR award for £123,000, plus funding from BNFL Enterprise Ltd, helped build the first production instrument.

In 1999, Millbrook won the Annual Achievement Award from the Worshipful Company of Scientific Instrument Makers for its highly innovative technological design and development.