An Orem company will play a cameo role in NASA's next mission to Mars.
A tiny X-ray window that MOXTEK Inc. designs and manufactures will be part of an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer designed at the University of Chicago for the Pathfinder spacecraft."It's a very small part, but for us it's significant," said Clark Turner, director of MOXTEK's windows section. "To my knowledge, no other company in the world is dedicated to X-ray optics."
Scientists working on the Pathfinder discovered MOXTEK's window at a trade show. The 8-year-old firm develops products for generating, focusing and detecting soft X-rays.
The windows, which are cut and etched from silicon wafers, reflect X-rays or radiation particles that can be analyzed. "They allow the X-rays to pass through without letting any gases pass through," Turner said.
MOXTEK shipped 10 of the thimble-size components to Chicago this month where they will be attached to the spectrometer.
Pathfinder, scheduled to launch in 1996, is meant to pave the way for MESUR, the Mars Environmental Survey mission, which would place 16 small landers on the red planet during 1999-2003. Some will carry 15-pound "microrovers" equipped with a spectrometer and a camera. The rovers will radio information to a lander, which will relay it to Earth.
While being part of a scientific space mission might be a glamorous use of MOXTEK's technology, the company has quietly made a name for itself in a very specialized market.
"We found a niche that no one else was servicing," Turner said.
Windows range in price from about $220 to $3,500 depending on diameter and thickness. MOXTEK did about $2 million in sales last year, Turner said.
The company's UltraThin and DuraBeryllium windows improve the measurement capability of solid state dispersive and other types of X-ray detectors. The windows are used on analyzers at Geneva Steel to gauge the quality of steel. Oil refineries can mount the windows on pipelines to instruments to measure the amount of sulfur in diesel fuel.
The painstaking process of making the delicate windows takes place in a sterile environment called the "clean room." Contamination of any kind could render the windows, which are thinner than a human hair, defective. Workers are covered in white, sanitary clothing from head to toe. Large filters remove any particulates from the air.
"We're talking no dust," Turner said. "This is cleaner than a hospital operating room by quite a bit."
Much of the equipment MOXTEK uses to keep its clean room dust-free was purchased at bargain prices from Signetics Co., when it closed down three years ago. And eight of MOXTEK's 30 employees once worked at the integrated circuit and semiconductor manufacturer.
The firm currently is developing its own X-ray detectors, rather than just supplying parts for instruments assembled elsewhere.
MOXTEK grew out of the Brigham Young University physics department. Five professors founded the company, and all but one of them are still involved with its operation. It's still closely associated with BYU's Center for X-ray Optics.
Founders incorporated in Delaware in July 1986 to take advantage of laws conducive to a public stock offering, a move the company is contemplating, Turner said.
In addition to spending much of its own money on research and development, MOXTEK obtains grants from the Small Business Innovation Research program. The company has received funds through the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and NASA.