inXitu was a company based in

Mountain View, California Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, it has a population of 82,376. Mountain View was integral to the early history and growth of Silicon Valley, and is the ...

, which developed portable

X-ray diffraction X-ray crystallography is the experimental science determining the atomic and molecular structure of a crystal, in which the crystalline structure causes a beam of incident X-rays to diffract into many specific directions. By measuring the angles ...

(XRD) and

X-ray fluorescence X-ray fluorescence (XRF) is the emission of characteristic "secondary" (or fluorescent) X-rays from a material that has been excited by being bombarded with high-energy X-rays or gamma rays. The phenomenon is widely used for elemental analysis ...

(XRF) analysis instruments. The company name was a combination of the terms ''in situ'' and ''X-ray'', portraying the company's dedication to developing X-ray instruments that could be easily transported to the original site of the material being analyzed.

Company history

The basis for inXitu began in 2003 when Philippe Sarrazin worked with NASA to file a patent on techniques used to develop the

CheMin Chemin or Le Chemin may refer to: Arts and media * ''Le chemin'' (Emmanuel Moire album), 2013 album by French singer Emmanuel Moire * ''Le chemin'' (Kyo album), 2003 album by French band Kyo ** "Le Chemin" (song), title song from same-titled Kyo ...

instrument for the Mars ''Curiosity'' rover. Sarrazin left NASA to form inXitu Research, which received two

Small Business Innovation Research The Small Business Innovation Research (or SBIR) program is a U.S. government funding program, coordinated by the Small Business Administration, intended to help certain small businesses conduct research and development (R&D). Funding takes the f ...

grants from

Ames Research Center The Ames Research Center (ARC), also known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1939 as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) laborat ...

in 2004 to continue work on CheMin. inXitu Research merged with Microwave Power Technology (MPT) in 2007 and incorporated as inXitu, Inc. MPT's research and development in high vacuum systems was meshed with inXitu's experience with XRD equipment, and in early 2008 the company released ''Terra'', a commercial field-portable XRD/XRF instrument. Bradley Boyer joined the company as President and Chief Executive Officer in September 2008. inXitu formed a partnership with Innov-X in December 2008, in which inXitu would manufacture XRD equipment for sale under the Innov-X brand name. Also in 2008, inXitu worked with the

Getty Conservation Institute The Getty Conservation Institute (GCI), located in Los Angeles, California, is a program of the J. Paul Getty Trust. It is headquartered at the Getty Center but also has facilities at the Getty Villa, and commenced operation in 1985.J. Paul Getty T ...

to develop ''X-Duetto'', a portable and non-destructive XRD/XRF device used for the analysis of works of art. It was commercially released as ''Duetto'' in mid 2009. The company released the ''BTX'' instrument in mid 2009, which is a desktop XRD/XRF device developed from Terra; the second generation ''BTX-II'' was released in early 2010. inXitu was purchased by Olympus in November 2011.

References

{{reflist Diffraction Fluorescence Defunct technology companies of the United States X-ray equipment manufacturers