About

The story of THATec Innovation

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THATec Innovation is a company founded by scientists for scientists. Our motivation is to help you to stay focused on the essential: your scientific work. From our own longstanding experience in experimental physics, we learned a lot about the requirements of everyday’s lab work and developed strategies to overcome major challenges to realize our research ideas. The idea behind THATec Innovation was born in the lab with the major goal to develop hardware and software solutions to let you profit from our experience in the areas of our expertise: the automation of laboratory devices, optical scanning microscopy, and Brillouin light scattering.

If you want to get more details about our scientific work and expertise, in particular for microfocused Brillouin light scattering, have a look at the following publication by our co-founder Dr. Thomas Sebastian et al.:

>> Micro-focused Brillouin light scattering: imaging spin waves at the nanoscale, T. Sebastian et al., Front. Phys. 3, 35 (2015) <<

The history of our company starts in the 90s when our partner Burkard Hillebrands developed the Tandem Fabry- Pérot Data Acquisition Software (TFPDAS, Link to publication). TFPDAS is not only an advanced control software for the tandem Fabry-Pérot interferometer developed by John Sandercock and distributed by his company Table Stable but it also greatly simplified the coordination and synchronization of this complex instrument with additional peripheral devices in automated measurements. A concept that was the starting point for the development of our software platform thaTEC:OS.

As a Diploma and PhD student in the group of Burkard Hillebrands at the TU Kaiserslautern, our co-founder Helmut Schultheiß developed major updates for TFPDAS and the additional software module TFPDAS-Micro for Brillouin light scattering microscopy. For many years, these software modules for Brillouin light scattering spectroscopy and microscopy have been used not only by us but also by scientists in many labs around the world.

On the basis of this long-standing experience, our company THATec Innovation GmbH was founded in 2016 as a spin-off of the Helmholtz Center Dresden-Rossendorf and supported by the Helmholtz association in the framework of the Helmholtz Enterprise program. Since then, THATec Innovation has taken over the further development of TFPDAS (now thaTEC:TFPDAS5) and TFPDAS-Micro (now thaTEC:Microscope) and pushed its concepts to a new level: our software platform thaTEC:OS offers solutions not only for Brillouin light scattering spectroscopy but is a general-purpose platform for the automation of your lab that is already used for various experimental techniques all over the world.

In addition to lab automation, based on our experience in the design, construction and optimization of customized laser scanning microscopes, we offer multifunctional and also custom tailored hardware solutions for optical scanning microscopy. This completes our portfolio and allows us to provide fully automated customized setups which will be set up right where it belongs: in your lab!

Publications

The following list of publications contain a selection of publications from our customers who employed our software platform thaTEC:OS to conduct their measurements.

Submitted

Accepted / In press

Published

Who we are

Dr. Thomas Sebastian

co-founder, CEO

Short CV
Since 2016co-founder, CEO of THATec Innovation
2014 – 2015Postdoc at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf
2013PhD in physics (TU Kaiserslautern),
thesis: “Linear and nonlinear spin dynamics in Co2Mn0.6Fe0.4Si Heusler microstructures”
2009Diploma in experimental physics (TU Kaiserslautern),
thesis: “Magnetooptische Untersuchungen zum Schaltverhalten kleiner magnetischer Strukturen”

Dr. Thomas Meyer

developer

Short CV
Since 2018Software- and hardware developer at THATec Innovation
2017PhD in physics (TU Kaiserslautern),
thesis: “Spin Orbit Torque Driven Spin Wave Dynamics in Microstructured Heusler Magnon Conduits”
2012Diploma in experimental physics (TU Kaiserslautern),
thesis: “Untersuchungen zur plasmonenunterstützten Signalverstärkung bei der Brillouin-Lichtstreumikroskopie”

Dr. Helmut Schultheiß

co-founder

Short CV
Since 2014Group leader at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf
2010 – 2014Postdoc at the Argonne National Laboratory
2010PhD in physics (TU Kaiserslautern),
thesis: “Kohärenz und Dämpfungsverhalten von Spinwellen in magnetischen Mikrostrukturen”
2006Diploma in experimental physics (TU Kaiserslautern),
thesis: “Brillouin-Lichtstreu-Mikroskopie an magnetischen Mikrostrukturen”

Dr. Attila Kakay

co-founder

Short CV
Since 2014Leading the micromagnetic activities at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf
2006- 2014Postdoc at the Forschungszentrum Jülich
2006PhD in physics (Budapest University of Technology and Economics),
thesis: “Numerical investigations of micromagnetic structures”
1998 – 2006Research Institute for Solid State Physics and Optics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Prof. Dr. Burkard Hillebrands

partner

Short CV
Since 2019President of the European Magnetism Association (EMA)
Since 2018Chair of the Commission on Magnetism of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP)
Since 2018Member of the National Academy of Science and Engineering, Germany (acatech)
Since 2017Vice-President of the Academy of Science and Literature, Mainz, Germany
Since 2010Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and of the American Physical Society (APS)
Since 2004Fellow of the Institute of Physics (IOP)