About Nanotronics

Nanotronics Imaging was founded in 2008 by Matthew Putman and John Putman after the sale of their 25 year old instrument business Tech Pro, Inc to Roper industries.

Tech Pro was the second largest provider of physical testing equipment in the field of complex polymer systems, including all rubber and plastics applications. Tech Pro was an international company with offices in 23 countries. Tech Pro was an innovator in several key areas. They were the first in the industry to introduce data acquisition and networking into previously analogue laboratories in the early 1980’s. For the next 25 years real time data collection, analysis, test condition flexibility and intuitive user interfaces remained central to Tech Pro’s vision and industry reputation. Tech Pro was key in the development of quality control instruments including rheometers and curemeters, which were often used 24 hours per day by many of the world’s leading manufacturers of tires, critical aerospace components, medical devices and materials. Tech Pro remained software focused, even when developing a Universal Tensile Tester in the early 1990’s. The tensiTECH was the first of its kind to follow an already established Tech Pro principle of handling all controls and set-up through the PC, rather than directly on the instrument. The entire line of Tech Pro equipment has no screens on the instruments themselves, instead utilizing the power of the rapidly advancing PC for data control and data acquisition. This allowed clients to have an instrument that could evolve at a rate similar to the increase in processing speed, rather than be tied down by electronic obsolescence. While this is common practice for many instrument makers now, it was always a Tech Pro philosophy, and in turn allowed it to use low cost off-the-shelf components which improved serviceability, and made its instruments affordable

In 2001 Tech Pro entered the field of rapid industrial microscopy with the purchase of the rights to a Swedish automated reflected-light microscope called the DisperGRADER. The DisperGRADER at the time used a CCD camera and a light source at a 30 degree angle, and internal algorithms and precise calibration to rapidly scan a surface of a rubber compound, such as a tire tread. The program would then compare the resulting image with known reference images to determine the quality of the sample. The test was rapid, and was already being used by the world’s top tire companies. Over the next several years Tech Pro greatly increased the range of the DisperGRADER by including quantitative data analysis, a sample preparation system, and a new design which again removed embedded systems in favor of control from the PC. Tech Pro increased the speed and the potential for the product to be used in other applications than tire control. The DisperGRADER remains the world leader in this type of measurement, and is used my companies such as Michelin, Goodyear, Rhodia, Continental, , DuPont  and hundreds of others. Tech Pro had 2 patents for the DisperGRADER and wrote, published and presented papers worldwide on both the microscope and the applications for its use.

The lessons learned from years dealing with clients, and especially the integration of the DisperGRADER inspired the choice of John Putman and Matthew Putman to start the venture Nanotronics Imaging. In 2004 Matthew began a Ph.D dissertation on a next generation of high resolution optical microscope that would have the ease of use of the DisperGRADER, but the power of a confocal microscope. The early prototypes were made by the Putmans and two engineers during the completion of the dissertation, and Matthew was convinced that while sensor design had not yet caught up with the vision, the concept was appropriate for the dissertation, and eventually a product. After the sale of Tech Pro, John, Matthew and a combination of three former Tech Pro engineers started Nanotronics Imaging.