The story
Founded by Günther Laukien in 1960.1
The company was founded on September 7, 1960, in Karlsruhe, Germany as Bruker-Physik AG by five people, one of them being Günther Laukien, who was a professor at the University of Karlsruhe at the time. The name Bruker originates from co-founder Emil Bruker, as Günther Laukien himself was formally not allowed to commercialize his research whilst being a professor. Bruker produced Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (NMR) and EMR spectroscopy equipment then.
In the early 1960s, the company had around 60 employees and was growing rapidly. One of the early success products was the HFX 90 NMR spectroscopy system, with three independent channels and which was also the first NMR system using only semiconductor transistors.
In 1969, Bruker launched the first commercial Fourier transform NMR spectroscopy system (FT-NMR) and in the 1970s the company was the first to commercialize a superconducting FT-NMR. Later, the company would expand their product range with MRI, FTIR and FT-Raman spectrometers and with mass spectrometers.
In 1968, Bruker shipped NMR systems to Yale University in Connecticut. After that, demand from the US grew, so Bruker opened an office in Elmsford, New York which marked the start of their US activities. In 2008 after a corporate reorganization lasting 8 years, all divisions were merged in a unified Bruker Corporation.
Günther Laukien died in 1997; one of his four sons Frank Laukien, is currently the CEO of Bruker. Another son, Jörg C. Laukien, also works for the company. Another son, Dirk D. Laukien, is a former company executive.
From Wikipedia’s article on Bruker, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.8