HistoryResonetics has been the leader in excimer laser micromachining since 1987, with hundreds of excimer laser instruments installed in the USA and around the world. In 1995, Resonetics was commissioned by the Research School of Earth Sciences (RSES) at the Australian National University to build an ablation instrument for their first 193nm LA-ICPMS. This event pioneered the simple aperture imaging ablation optical system and oblique viewing optics now used in the RESOlution M-50. At that time, almost all other LA-ICPMS instruments were focusing the Gaussian light from an Nd: YAG laser directly on to the sample. Over several years (multiple ablation cells installed and in use), Laurin Technic designed and developed a unique ablation cell which is now used in the Resonetics RESOlution product line and is being used in various research facilities around the world.
When Dr. Wolfgang Müller moved from the Australian National University (ANU) to Royal Holloway University of London (RHUL), he needed a LA-ICPMS instrument to continue his work on geosciences (e.g. Harrison, T.M., J. Blichert-Toft, W. Müller et al. (2005),Heterogeneous Hadean Hafnium: Evidence of continental crust at 4.4-4.5 Ga. Science 310: 1947-1950 and Müller, W. (2003) Origin and Migration of the Alpine Iceman. Science 302: 862-866. ) and on high resolution (palaeo) environmental records (teeth, speleothems etc.). He commissioned Resonetics of Nashua USA and Michael Shelley of Laurin Technic Pty. Ltd. (Canberra, Australia) to design and build an instrument with a medium-sized excimer laser operating at a maximum repetition rate of 100 Hz. This instrument was designed to be the ultimate, no compromises, laser ablation instrument. The RESOlution Series is the developed result.
