CTLAB celebrates 10 years!

The history of the CT laboratory begins in 2010 following the building of the research institution CEITEC BUT in Brno, within which funds were invested into new technologies. Prof. Jozef Kaiser's research group took this opportunity to build an X-ray tomography (CT) workplace. Two years later, the first laboratory with one of the most advanced industrial CT systems on the market, capable of addressing a wide range of research tasks, was ready to begin research. CT technology, which was back then known only in the medical environment, was still looking for its place within different industries. One of the important tasks of the CTLAB is to educate about the CT technology and to phase the use of CT into different applications.The laboratory's vision from the beginning has been to provide excellent CT expertise for both the scientific and industrial communities. We were sure that the key to success was not only professional facilities, but mainly a specialist team of people with experience in the using and deeper knowledge of CT technology. That is why we paid big attention to our team. From three enthusiasts, we grew to a twenty-member team consisting of academics, scientists, technical staff and Ph.D. students.

In the scientific environment, we managed to implement the industrial CT analysis in many professional studies across various scientific disciplines including biology, medicine, geology, archaeology, restoration, tissue engineering, additive manufacturing, battery research, etc. More than 75 scientific publications, describing our research, were featured in highly impacted journals such as eLife, Current Biology, Science Translational Medicine and Nature Communications. The biggest breakthrough we have been able to make in biology is the declassification of development mechanisms through the facial analysis of laboratory mice. Thanks to biological projects, our laboratory has managed to establish international cooperation with renowned institutions such as Karolinska Institutet (Sweden), Institut Pasteur (France) and the Medical University of Vienna (Austria) and to build international renown. The success of the study was largely thanks to two unique CT devices, enabling resolution spanned hundreds of nanometers and achieving high data quality.

In 10 years of operation, we have managed to build the industry's trust and now we are working with almost 100 companies. To maintain the flexibility of analysis and the increasing number of requirements, especially in the automotive industry, we expanded the instrument portfolio with an additional CT machine, added within the first 4 years of operation. This CT machine, thanks to a stronger X-ray source, enabled the analysis of more massive steel parts. CT analyses are constantly improved and based on respected standards, culminating in the accreditation of the laboratory in 2016, which entitles us to use CT scans for metrological performance.

As more years and experience have passed, significant collaborations with global manufacturers of CT machines as well as specialized software have gradually begun to be added. We are proud to work with global leaders such as Waygate Technologies, Rigaku Corporation, Thermo Fisher Scientific and Volume Graphics. The vision of an excellent tomography centre is coming true and we are the first to test the products of these companies and participate in their development. The knowledge of manufacturers has contributed to the identification and development of own add-ons to CT machines that streamline and improve the CT measurement process. The positive response of the CT community to the development of these supplements led to the establishment of the start-up company CactuX in 2020, which aims to commercialize these outputs.

We are proud that we have managed to build a modern centre of global importance in the Czech Republic, based on our technical know-how and self-sufficiency, firmly based on pillars of research activities and industrial cooperation. We are actively working on continuously providing the best and are already planning other interesting projects for the future. One of which is the LINACTON project, aiming to transfer CT technology based on a linear accelerator to the Czech Republic. This technology is a complete revolution and pushes the limits of existing devices to test large parts for the aerospace, military, battery and additive industries.

You can check the CTLAB video here.